Despite loving plants for years and a summer working at a garden center, planting with natives has me feeling like a complete novice. Like many Chicagoans, I haven’t had much access to a permanent green space to call my own. So years of gardening with annuals in containers hasn’t prepared me to be great at identifying the young sprouts of weeds that are taking over my garden.
Luckily the internet exists with its plant identification apps like Plant Net, and the ability to connect with fellow native gardeners. With the help of both, I was able to identify the field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense) and horseweed (Erigeron canadensis) that was trying to claim my corner for itself. I was delighted to find two surviving Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea) hiding among the pennycress.
It wasn’t all bad news, the horseweed especially seems to have helped break up the clay that makes digging in this corner so difficult, and while pulling them up I spotted two ladybugs cozied up inside their leaves. Aside from bumblebees at the end of last season, they are the only insects I’ve seen in the garden. Which made it even more delightful when a neighbor walked by with her dog and told me how much he loves it because of the butterflies he sees in it. Is there anything sweeter than a pup who loves butterflies? I hope to attract many more for him.
Since the last post, my delivery from Prairie Nursery came in and I planted Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), and Prairie Spiderwort (Tradescantia bracteata).
Rather than making the same mistake as last year of planting my Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia) and Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) directly into the corner and basically providing a salad bar for the local bunnies, this year I’m going to grow them in our building’s above ground vegetable garden until they are a size to survive snacking. I’ve struggled to purchase spring bloomers that find full sun/clay/dry soil hospitable, so fingers crossed that the violets survive this year.
The experiment to find labels that can handle the weather continues. I am using the same dollar store plastic tags as last year but this time I’ve bought a permanent marker made for this exact purpose. The weather at this corner is not something to underestimate. I recently used zip ties to attach a sign to the large pole in the garden only for the wind to break one within days. I’ll be coming back out with some wire to reattach it.
Birchwood Butterfly Corner 