r/NativePlantGardening

Celebrating spring. This used to be a railroad tie retaining wall and a hill of ivy. Now the Cinnamon ferns, Royal ferns, and Christmas ferns are happily multiplying on the exposed rock.

I pass these everyday on my way to work and they just kept catching my eye. today I had time to pull over and take a picture to identify. There's a grove of them right in a construction area... I want to plan a heist but it seems collecting a few seeds would be my best option rather than trying to transplant a couple. Any thoughts?

USA zone 7B

Following up from last week, this week in central TX we have:

1. Annual (tall) winecup, callirhoe leiocarpa. Not many are ready but the ones growing in areas with a lot of exposure/heat island effect are. Ready when both the seedheads and the stem holding the seedheads are brown at least an inch or so down.

2. Golden grounsel, packera sp. Ready when they are fluffy and about to blow away. Love these for shade, they stay evergreen in winter too.

3. Damianita, chrysactinia mexicana. Pic for illustration only, I didn’t actually collect these from the plants at the wildflower center because I’m not an animal. My personal plants for some reason bloomed and dropped seed in January but they seem to be outliers, the wild patches seem to be setting now.

previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/TexasNativePlants/s/RU3SwZ7jvs

Zone 7A, shade

Invasive?

I took this photograph today. This garden is located in North Texas. The eco-region is the Blackland Prairie.

Common Name(s): Firecracker Plant, Red Buckeye, Scarlet Buckeye

ES-kew-lus PAH-vee-ah

This guy is really happy. Cannot wait til it flowers. Wasn’t sure if it was too shady a spot but seems to be doing just fine. If you want something native that is a hummingbird magnet, I highly recommend.

NY-based. Back in the fall, I had my landscaper put the leaves from my yard into my native garden bed.

Now I’m worried that perhaps there were too many leaves left in the garden bed, as I typically start to see my wild blue phlox start to grow in around this time. I removed some of the layers and the phlox is still there, just looking very pale.

Do you think they will grow ok at this point? If I had left the leaves, do you think they would have eventually grown through to the top layer, or would they have been smothered?

Thank you.

I'm in the NW Chicago suburbs and this "popped up" in one of our beds. I'm usually pretty good about noting what we've planted and where, but this bed was done last fall, which was during a pretty hectic time for me. I did ask my local native gardening FB group (I'm pretty sure some of you are here as well, hello!), but I thought I'd get other input. Someone suggested Pale Indian Plantain, which is certainly possible, but although we've bought it as a young plant before, I can't 100% remember what it looked like and Google Lens/Seek haven't been much assistance and I just can't add yet another app on my phone. I don't want to get rid of it if it's actually native, but I don't want to allow it to continue growing if it's undesirable.

Finger's crossed it's a native!

I planted them 3 years ago and forgot. now that the native plant sale is coming up in my area again I'd like to know what I have before buying more.

im in zone 6b

I posted this pic 1 last year of my front garden. For context, I’m in Zone 7B in a large city with this small front “yard.” I’m renting and the space was a blank canvas except for the ground being covered with some kind of weed cloth and allllll this gravel. The landlord said I could plant whatever I want, so I bought a bunch of native perennials from a local garden spot and got everything in place between August and October of last year. Fast forward to Spring and a lot of the plants are starting to wake up and things looks promising. BUT, the weeds are also awake and are here in force (pic 2). I’m sure it’s not helping that the adjoining neighbor has a yard about the same size as mine and does nothing to care for it, so it’s just completely covered in weeds year round.

1. Suggestions for managing the weeds while encouraging the growth of the natives I planted?

2. Will continuing to fill in the space with more natives eventually drive out the weeds, or will this be a perpetual problem?

For those suggesting to get rid of the gravel - that’s a no go. The landlord wants to keep it.

Thanks!

Of the butterfly milkweeds I planted last fall I've had two start to emerge, one is just greens above the ground but this one has some tuber poking out. I think I planted it fully buried, guess the dirt just settled this way? Anyway, is that a normal situation for the plant or should I come back and bury it a bit more?