Planting Once Again

This morning seemed like a good time to get more of my wildflowers planted. They've been repotted long enough now that they have well-developed root systems and they will fare better in the ground with natural soil than they will with the potting soil they've been kept in.  It's just an act of faith right now, however, as the temperatures outside are setting record highs for this time of year and there has been no rain for more than a week and none expected in the foreseeable future. They will need to be hand watered to survive and become established, but I think it's better this way than confining their deep root systems to the artificiality of a 4" pot.

With these new plants, I have now removed about 4/5ths of the sod that has been inside the frame I laid down in late October. I've got more plants to add that are still too small to pot up from the flats they are growing in, but all the species that have been potted have also now been planted. It's sometimes difficult, even with my 30+ years of experience, judging the distance apart that I should plant each of these and to predict how things will look once the plants have matured. I think I've given each of them the space they will need and put them in some sort of arrangement so that none will get lost beneath the canopy of their neighbors. Of course, many of these will spread over the next year or two and my attempts at order will give way to a natural order. I can only weed a bit if need be.
Alexa used to tell me that one cannot have too many Coreopsis....... but she was wrong.  I am letting them reseed, but I anticipate having to seed a few out next spring. Coreopsis leavenworthii takes up very little space and has the decency to die back in the fall. Coreopsis lanceolata, however, is evergreen and forms a rather wide rosette of basal leaves which will hinder a few of the less aggressive wildflowers that I also want to promote.
For the most part, I added wildflowers in the aster family. This group includes most of the best plants for pollinators and that is what I am mostly targeting here in this area. I've got host plants scattered throughout my new yard so I am free inside this frame to focus largely on flowers that provide nectar and pollen to bees, butterflies and other assorted species. Among the new asters that I planted today are Stoke's aster (Stokesia laevis), lakeside sunflower (Helianthus carnosus), Phoebanthus (Phoebanthus grandiflorus), and Dixie aster (Sericocarpus tortifolius).  I also added a second late purple aster (Symphyotrichum patens) as the first one I planted almost a month ago is doing very well so far. I have been maintaining my small population of this beautiful aster for several years in containers as they did not survive my former landscape in Seminole. All of these new Asteraceae species join a few others that I put in about a week ago after I returned from the Florida Native Plant Society state conference; Florida Indian plantain (Arnoglossum floridanum), kidney-leaved compass plant (Silphium compositum), and my last rayless blanketflower (Gaillardia aestivalis). It is always my hope that these wildflowers will prosper, flower, and then set seed so that I can continue to propagate them in my hobby nursery - Hawthorn Hill.
I've also added a couple of other wildflower species that are not asters. These attract a different type of pollinator and, frankly, I just like them. Including them is almost as much about me as it is about the wildlife. I have a large crop of pink beardtongue (Penstemon australis) in my nursery and today I planted six of them. I may yet add another cluster of this one before I am finished. I also added the single pinebarren frostweed (Crocantheum corymbosum) that survived the repotting I put it through several months back. I've always found this to be a touchy species when moved, but a tough one once established. If it makes it, it will form a small colony. Last, I planted the rabbitbells (Crotalaria rotundufolia) that was given to me by a friend during my visit last week to West Palm Beach. It is a host plant for several butterflies and makes an attractive flower besides.
When I am finished, my front landscape will have nearly 3 dozen species of wildflowers inside the frame and about 6 species of small woody plants on the northern perimeter. I believe strongly that an effective pollinator garden has to have diversity, that it has to be planned, that it includes native grasses, that it have areas of bare soil, and that, because of all this, it has to be managed by proactive weeding.  I do not believe in letting nature take its course within suburban landscape settings and I abhor the idea of stripping the sod and letting whatever species that emerges have as place at the table - native or not. It is true that something is better than nothing, but a real commitment to pollinators requires planning and work. I've been collecting most of my plants for years (sometimes decades) waiting for this point in time. One plants what will be most effective and effective has to include the concept of diversity.

Most of the turf is now gone and the bare soil planted with seedling wildflowers