Common Boneset

Eupatorium perfoliatum and Rudbeckia subtomentosa 'Henry Eilers'Mid-August pocket meadowUpdating a favorite program today (Native Plants for Pollinators), I figured that I needed to add Common Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) to the mix.It's been a standout in the pocket meadow (aka pollinator patch)...

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Pocket meadow in mid-August

Eupatorium perfoliatum (Common Boneset), Eutrochium purpureum (Joe-Pye), various Liatris species, Heliopolis, Parthenium integrefolium (Wild Quinine), and three different Vernonia species are welcoming pollinators of all sorts in the pocket meadow in mid-August. Not to mention the Brazilian sage...

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Pocket meadow: pollinators welcome

The pocket meadow in front of the house continues to transform, but is especially lively now, as (normally) fall-flowering plants like Joe-Pye, Vernonia spp., and Solidago are in flower or starting to flower.Pocket meadow - pollinator-friendly!On the other side of the driveway, Salvia guaranitica continues...

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Moving to a new garden

We've been so fortunate to have a new "piece of earth" to move forward to -- there's so much that we've established of a new garden, over the past 6 years, from my raised beds for vegetables and pocket meadow in front, to the native woodland garden below the house (my gardening companion's work).We...

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Pocket meadow and views

view through the front door I'm grateful today for the wonderful view out the doors in our small mountain house.pocket meadow- late August 2014We've certainly created the view out the front door, and the back -- well, the forest overstory was there, but it was my gardening companion's hard work...

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Pollinators

pocket meadow -mid-August 2014The pocket meadow in front is being visited by all sorts of bees and butterflies.  What fun!  The Joe-Pye, Boneset, Phlox, and Ironweed are all in play, not to mention the South American Salvia guaranitica, which our native ruby-throated hummingbirds love.Bumblebee...

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"Pocket" meadowThe plants in the pocket meadow out front are such a nice mix, flowering sequentially throughout the growing season.  This is somewhat (although not entirely) by design.It was heartening to see how many of them survived the exceptionally cold winter -- and the ones that didn't; well,...

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Views out the front door

Female goldfinch gleaning seedI spent the morning cleaning up the last of the beans and squash from my vegetable beds in the mountains.I won't be back for several weeks, although my gardening companion will be as well as the folks who keep an eye on things, etc., so I wanted to tidy up the garden.Echinacea...

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Front meadow

I really wish I had a decent camera at the moment - the iPad 2 is pretty minimal (awful, actually). I miss my trusty Nikon D100 left at home in the Piedmont through forgetfulness and a hurried exit!But I enjoyed the front meadow this evening, and even these sub-par photos reflect the scene. (As an addendum,...

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Understanding plant communities & creating pocket meadows

The heading titles were my gardening companion's message and mine at the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference today.It's been such fun to connect with avid native plant people of all persuasions (novice to expert!) over the last few days.Learning is always good, at whatever point in the process of learning...

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Natural gardening, meadows and informal perennial borders

Natural gardening to me means mimicking nature, recreating the way that natural processes result in the plant communities and successional habitats that we see, encouraging plant combinations that work, look and feel like natural places.  It's what I like to see at home. Meadow habitats are particularly...

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More pocket meadows

I'm been on the lookout for informal plantings of native grasses and forbs (herbaceous perennials) --- these are the pocket meadow plants and plantings that I'm wanting to promote in an upcoming talk. More expansive meadows (at least in the eastern U.S.) are hard to manage, as they want to become...

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