My Developing Wildflower Garden - In the Beginning

In the Beginning

Today - March 9 2019

I am making slow, but steady progress in my front yard. I want to be sure that I am putting the right plant in the right place and I'm still deciding on what the "right plants" are. I have always had to hold myself back from planting too quickly. After nearly 40 years of designing and planting native-plant landscapes, I still often make mistakes. Some plants may be beautiful and utilitarian, but spread aggressively. Others may grow taller or wider than the place they've been given. These kinds of mistakes are normally made not from naivety, but by poor planning. I will likely still make some mistakes this time again, but they will have been made after careful deliberation about which plants I need to add and where they should go.

I have been slowly whittling away at the turf grass that's inside my frame and planting it with native plants. One of the other mistakes I've learned from over the years is to only bite off what you can chew. There is no sense removing the turf and exposing the open soil to a massive weed invasion until I am ready to plant it. I have been busy pulling the weeds that have sprung up in the barren soil that I now have; I don't need more of that kind of work right now.
I estimate that I have now prepared about a third of my final planting area. Many of the species I've added to date are short and woody. I have added short trees and shrubs to the northern edge outside the frame. In this location, they will not shade the wildflowers to the south and they will fulfill their purpose in the sun.  I am often asked what I am planting so I'll provide a list of what I've added to date:
North of the framed area includes a number of native hawthorns - Summer haw (Crataegus flava), sandhill haw (Crataegus lassa), and what I call Poinciana haw (unnamed to date), and a silk bay (Persea humilis) - all plants I grew from seed. There also is a cluster of garberia (Garberia heterophylla) in the northeaster corner - two that I purchased and one that I grew from seed. All of these are excellent choices for pollinators, birds, and other wildlife, but it will be several years before they provide that benefit to any real extent. I find that most hawthorns, for example, do not flower until they are about 7 years old.
Inside the frame, I've also added most, if not all, of the woody plants I intend to add here. I've planted four dwarf haws (Crataegus lepida) that I've grown from seed collected many years ago on a trip to south Georgia to attend my oldest son's graduation from Army training. Dwarf haw is an amazing plant, never exceeding 2 feet in height and with a very bonzai growth form. I treasure the few plants I held back from selling and I've added them all to inside my framed landscape. They will bloom in a few weeks with the white rose-like flowers and make small yellow haws.
I wait in anticipation to see if the scrub plum (Prunus geniculata) I moved from my former Seminole landscape survives. I hate to scratch the cambium too often to see if its green or brown, but only a portion of it may still be alive. I would hate to lose it as I may never get another, but plants don't always survive and I will adjust if it perishes.
I have added two separate pawpaw species for the zebra swallowtails that I'd love to host in my new yard - small-flowered pawpaw (Asimina parviflora) and a scrub pawpaw (A. obovata) that I grew from seed. Our native pawpaws mostly all produce beautiful flowers, but they are beetle pollinated and this complicates their ability to reproduce in areas like mine where the insect component of the local fauna is generally depauperate. My scrub pawpaw will take several years to reach any kind of size, but all the plants I grow from seed have a special meaning to me and I'd rather wait patiently than to see if I can purchase a larger one from a nursery.

Scrub pawpaw recently planted 

I've added several woody scrub mints - Conradina grandiflora and C. glabra that I purchased months ago and two bumelias - Sideroxylon tenax (the gnarly scrub form) and S. rufotomentosa that I grew from seed from the plant in my former landscape. These are all superb pollinator plants and the bumelias produce purple fruit that are prized by a great many songbirds.

Conradina glabra

Most recently, I've begun adding the herbaceous wildflowers that I have growing in my hobby nursery - Hawthorn Hill. Most of the wildflowers that I'm planning to add will come from my nursery, but most of these are still too small to plant. I will wait.
What I have added are specifically planted for their value to bees and butterflies. Flowers in the aster family (Asteraceae) are always super valuable for this purpose. A few days ago, I added two true asters - Silver aster (Symphyotrichum concolor) and Walter's aster (S. walteri) as well as one of the goldenrods I will add to this mix. I've been saving a few Carolina goldenrods (Solidago arguta) that I did not sell last fall and I planted two of these. Some goldenrods sucker and spread aggressively and I will avoid these, but I have three more species to add eventually. There are few better genera for pollinator benefits than the goldenrods.

Silver aster

Walter's aster with a Carolina goldenrod to the far left of the log

Last, I finally planted the sole butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) that I had left in my nursery. I've been saving this lone plant now for two years. As it once-again emerged from its winter rest, I found the pot and finally put it in the ground. I hope to purchase a few more, but it felt good to finally release it from its pot confinement.
I have dozens of more wildflowers left to add and a number of native grasses. I will keep you posted on my progress.  It's been exciting watching this landscape come to life. As I add pollinator plants, my observations of bees, wasps, butterflies and pollinating flies have increased - but they're still too few and far between. I have butterflies finding my host plants and yesterday I uncovered a Brahminy blind snake as I was planting. Although this is a non-native species, it is a sign of life and I won't begrudge it.