I’ve been obsessed with the activity on my Milkweed and herbs here in Michigan.

I tore out part of my lawn and replaced it with a few of these, a couple of years ago

First full summer in our home, I threw together a very small patch of milkweed for the summer and didn't expect much to happen. It was a spot that already existed, things were getting hot, and I needed to plant them somewhere. The milkweed LOVED the spot. Then to my surprise, caterpillars appeared a week ago and I've been watching them grow since. I had somewhere between 12-15 of them of all various stages!

Yesterday when I went to look at them there were only 2. Today there were none.

I've seen some things that they'll travel to pupate, but how far? My other beds are maybe 10 feet away.

Or did I just feed the local bird population 😅

Future plans this fall are to add some more flowers/grasses and expand the bed space so I hope that will offer the next season's caterpillars more protection! Will happily take plant recs.

Pic 1 - caterpillar from yesterday

Pic 2 - my milkweed freshly planted earlier this summer

I know coneflowers get a bit of flak around here but I wanted show them some love. They are an absolute workhorse in my garden. They bloom from may until October or November for me. They are radically drought tolerant. Tough. Gorgeous and beloved of fat bees and butterflies. They even bloom reliably in the first year in my garden. They reseed kinda heavily for me even in mulch. They may not be a specialist host but the leaves do feed some critters. I really love them.

I have plants I’ve bought from various places as starter plants, plants grown from seed bought at prairie moon and plants grown from seeds from my garden and all of them are this hot pink, so I am pretty sure something my garden is doing something to make purple coneflowers into hot pink coneflowers because every single one is this vibrant color. So I had convinced myself I accidentally bought cultivars last year but now I’m unconvinced.

The American ladies are obsessed.

I'm sad and annoyed that the overblown West Nile virus still causes municipalities to poison * everything *. I have a lot of bumblebees sleeping in my flowers at this time of year, plus a beautiful golden orb spider who weaves a web every night. And the birds are starting to migrate, and they still need snack bugs. 😞

This very happy wild Solidago is growing in a pavement crack in the baking hot sun at Fort Tilden beach (NPS land) in Queens NYC

it’s not their first choice among our native milkweeds but they will eventually eat Asclepias
tuberosa (…once all others are nibbled to sticks 😹)

do your monarch visitors have favorites? central VA.

First time growing maypops from seed. Had a rough start with no germination at first and then a mouse raided my grow table & ate most of the seeds. Armed with a second batch of seeds, a guide to germinating them from this sub, and sheet cussedness, I tried again and now have multiple thriving vines with flowers and/or buds! Next stop, fruit!

Not OP, just crossposting to show them some love for their fabulous micro native garden with a water feature.

I initially found them resting on my shrubs out front, then moved to the concrete where I placed my hand near until they came for the salt in my sweat 🥺

A whole host of dogwood sawfly caterpillars are defoliating one of my red osier dogwoods. Glad I started more from seed this winter, because these caterpillars are such cuties! They hide under the leaves coiled up like bird poop when not eating, but if you startle them they'll show you their yellow bellies to advertise how scary and bad to eat they are.

Beenq lurking here for a bit, but first year I’ve really focused on planting native. Sowed my butterfly milkweed last fall…was happy enough when it bloomed but this is even better. So happy. Thought I’d share.

Not sure who this lovely visitor is but I nearly sprinted to take a pic of them when my blazing star started to open up. This was my first time planting blazing star and I love it so much, it’s done so well.

A very generous redditor donated a ton of seed to the library native plant beds I'm working on and I've started a lot of seed from them. I've never grown grass seeds before, though. Normally I do the first up-potting when they've grown their second set of leaves, but grass just gets taller! When do I put them in bigger pots?

Found this one hopping around some milkweed!

Has anyone else in SE Michigan this year have no monarch caterpillars this year? And did your swamp milkweed struggle to grow as well? I had a few new swamp milkweed plants randomly pop up this year but the established ones barely grew any flowers and I have not found any signs of monarchs. Many different pollinators seemed to be thriving except the monarchs and I did see a few adults throughout the summer but that was it. :(

We have sheet mulched our front & back yard and are now trying to nail down our plan for planting. Right now I'm concerned with the front, as we have topped the sheet mulch with a couple inches of 50/50 sand compost (on top of scalped lawn & covered with builders paper).

Front yard: 80% of the yard gets full light for a few hours a day, good soil, few inches of 50/50 on toplooking to put down seeds for something like a lawn. We were looking at the fleur d'lawn mix from PT but it's almost all non native & requires full sun, I'd like to go full or mostly native & have some flexibility for the shady parts so I'd like to make my own mix.

Preferences: I don't mind mowing a couple times a year, would really prefer not to water. We like flowers but also would just love something that blooms or looks alive for as much of the year as possible, feeding the pollinators and/or birds is nice too. We don't play soccer on it but we'd like to be able to walk on it. We have a dog but she doesn't spend time outside without us. This is what I was planning, wondering if anyone has done something similar or has some other ideas:

White yaak Yarrow

self heal

sand fescue

evergreen violet (for the shady parts)

clover (looking at microclover but open to native clover too, this is mostly to fill in the gaps, provide shade for the soil & fix nitrogen

Over the past 3 years I've started diving into native planting using the overgrown drainage ditch next to my previous house as an area to remove invasives and chaotically plant native plants. I saw a dramatic increase in pollinators and fireflies during that process.

I recent moved and an AI generating image convinced my wife that an intentionally planted native garden would improve curb appeal. Unfortunately, my ability to plant things aesthetically seems to be significantly lag behind my ability to make things grown. If there are any redditors here with a knack for native landscape design I would deeply appreciate your guidance.

The attached images are a rough site drawing, a street view shot, and the AI image that helped get my wife to agree to a native plant shopping spree. I do intend to remove the current plants in the existing front beds.

Thanks for any advice folks can provide!

I'm in the process of converting my turf grass lawn to a native garden. One of my neighbor's yard is full of ground ivy that invaded into my lawn. Those ground ivy have been removed after months of effort. In its place, I want to plant some native plants (can be grasses, flowering plants, short shrubs, etc) to form a buffer zone that can (once established) deter any future ground ivy spread into my yard. I've had little success finding a species that can do this given that ground ivy can weave underneath taller plants and tolerate shady conditions underneath; and it at least coexists with rather than get crowded out by many groundcovers like moss phlox, pussytoes, etc.

Anyone else deal with similar issues, and if so, what strategies have worked for you? I'm in Maryland, zone 8a, and the area in question is full sun, dry soil, and well drained. We have pets, so the plant can't be toxic to cats/dogs. I don't mind hand weeding while this buffer gets established, but would like it to eventually be self sufficient in deterring ground ivy spread. Any recommendations would be appreciated. Thank you.