*Giant* hyssop is not an exaggeration.

 Last year I planted a flower called giant purple hyssop. It established itself faster than I've ever seen a native plant take. It went from about 5" tall in the plastic pot to 4' tall with multiple stalks by the end of summer. It was VERY popular with the bees. I was excited to see what it did this year. Sources said it would top out at about 6' tall.

It did not disappoint. The fence behind it is 6' tall...

I put a tape measure on it tonight, and it comes in at about 9'. 

Bloom closeup. 

I've only seen bumblebees (as opposed to non-native honeybees) on it, which is a nice little bonus.

Sleeping Bumble Bee

I was looking through my garden after dark (searching for a mis-thrown dog toy) and found this sleeping bumble bee. 

Bumble Bee

Wish I'd taken this picture with my good camera. A bumble bee (I believe a brown-belted, Bombus griseocollis) enjoying some common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). I love that you can see its proboscis.

Dandelions

Soapbox time.

Dandelions are a contentious topic. I have been lectured both for removing them from my intentional plantings and for leaving them in my lawn.

There are multiple species of dandelions and similar-looking flowers. Some of them are native, some are not, so be cautious of pulling yellow many-petaled flowers before you know what they are. (List is not inclusive.)

Common dandelion - invasive
Red-seeded dandelion - invasive
Autumn hawkbit  - invasive

Prairie false dandelion - native
False dandelion - native

For the purposes of this entry, I will be discussing common dandelions and red-seeded dandelions.

Yep, they are invasive species, introduced from Europe. Yep, they are edible.

Some people leave them because being an early spring bloomer makes them "important food for bees." This is actually false. While bees (native and otherwise) will happily visit them, especially in spring when flower pickings are slim, the pollen offered by dandelions is low in nutritional value.

Most research is done on honey bees due to their agricultural value, but these sources touch on other bees as well:

• Are Dandelions Really Important to Bees?
• Pollen Quality
• The Real Scoop on Dandelions and Honeybees

In short: dandelion pollen is low in protein and lacking in certain amino acids which are key to bee development. This doesn't mean it's hurting them, as long as they have a diversity of pollen sources. But it's not necessarily GOOD for them, either. It's better for them to have access to the pollen sources that they evolved to eat - generally plants that are native to your area.

Fighting dandelions takes resources, in the form of time and/or herbicides. Herbicides cost money, harm other plants, and are possibly harmful to insects. Hand culling is the most environmentally friendly way to control the spread of dandelions, but it is also labor-intensive and time-consuming. It's up to you whether that time and energy would be better spent elsewhere.

For some alternative early-blooming native plants to encourage, check out:
Common blue violet
Virginia waterleaf
Wild strawberry
Red columbine
Bloodroot

Common Minneapolis Weeds

When I first moved to Minneapolis, I started noticing certain plants that I didn't recognize from my time in the country and outer-ring suburbs. They are probably present to some extent in those areas, but they are endemic here and in St. Paul.

When first starting out growing a native garden and taking advantage of volunteer plants, it can be hard to tell the helpful native plants from harmful invasives. This is not meant to be an all-inclusive guide, only a starting point for some of the most common invasive weeds in the area.

The definition of "weed" is fluid and hotly contested. In this case, I am using it to describe plants that were introduced from other biomes, and are widespread and aggressive growers that will displace native plants with more value to wildlife. They should be controlled where possible, and care should be taken not to spread them to uninfested areas.

All pictures are mine. Please check out the links by clicking on the plant names for much better and more thorough information.

Nightshade
Related to tomatoes and potatoes. Attractive vine with unique leaves that vary from heart-shaped to fully lobed, and multiple small purple flowers. Can get quite large given the right conditions. Gives off a strong bitter odor when cut. Entire plant, including fruit, is poisonous to humans.

Creeping purple bellflower
Probably my most hated invasive. Very pretty plant, but it is impossible to get rid of and will choke out everything else. It spreads via taproots, so you can pull it constantly and it will just grow back. When I converted a weedy, hard-to-maintain mound behind my garage into a retaining wall, a good 50% of the volume was roots from this plant. They survived years being smothered under weed fabric and gravel and have now returned with a vengeance.

Burdock
Kinda looks like rhubarb. It's not. Don't make any pies out of it.

(Unfortunately I do not have a photo of this one.)

Lambs Quarters
Another one that pops up in bare soil and disturbed dirt.

Creeping charlie
You won't win the battle against this one, but it's not THAT problematic. It grows aggressively wherever it's given the chance, but it's easy to pull and won't choke out other plants as badly as some. Member of the mint family, square stem, smells strongly when cut. Blooms with small lavender flowers in the spring and early summer.

Goutweed
Another one that is seemingly impossible to get rid of. Aggressive ground cover, loves disturbed soil, shade, sun, whatever. Gets clusters of white flowers that are similar to Queen Anne's Lace, and also comes in a variegated green and white version. Asymmetric leaves numbering one or two on each stem.

Feeding My Addiction

Today I acquired yet more plants. A button bush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) and a couple northern blue flag irises (Iris versicolor). The button bush is going to go in an area up against the fence where there used to be a retaining wall, and the irises will go in my backyard flower garden. I'm really enjoying having a yard that actually gets sun.

New Mystery Plants

Found a couple new volunteers today. This one is some kind of coreopsis. Possibly Coreopsis grandiflora or Coreopsis lanceolata.

And this is an aster. I think Erigeron annuus, annual fleabane.

Friends!

The more natives I plant, the more cool new insects I see. I think this is a long-legged fly.

Bumble bee butt! Flower is an ornamental penstamon, but apparently still meets their standards.

Monarch caterpillar mowing down on common milkweed.

Strawberries!

Free Trellis

I have a trellis addiction. I'm also very cheap.

Some ornamental clematis by my driveway needed something to climb. I tried netting, thinking it would look cool as it was basically invisible against the vinyl fence, but it kept getting tangled in everything. I made do with some cheap wire tomato cages for a while, but they didn't have the look I wanted either.

Then a friend's underbuilt porch/awning collapsed in a storm last summer, and they were kind enough to let me take the vertical supports. My original plan was to weld them into something, but I abandoned that idea when I realized the metal they were made of was too thin.

They sat behind my nearly-completed chicken coop for almost a year. I have a bad habit of piling materials back there, as you can see.

With the clematis coming up in the spring, I had a deadline. I finally cobbled the supports together into something. Aside from electricity, this didn't cost me a penny. I had gotten the 2x4 for free, salvaged the sheet metal screws from work, and welded the corners out of some angle aluminum from an abandoned project.

I used leftover brackets from the vinyl fence to attach the trellis to the fence. It's so lightweight that I'm not worried about it pulling loose or damaging the fence.

I was assured that clematis would grow as high as they possibly could, up to 20' tall. Clearly this was a lie, as mine lost interest after less than 6'. But I'm still pretty happy with the look. The clematis on the ends are Warsaw Nikes, and the one in the middle is a lavender variety I can't remember the name of. It's never been very enthusiastic.

Rain Garden #1

I started this rain garden in October 2018 to handle the runoff from part of my garage roof.

It began life as an unassuming mud pit a few inches deep with a berm around the border. The pile of rocks under the downspout are to prevent erosion. The fence is to keep the dogs from trampling everything, or worse.

I found a native fern on late-season clearance and transplanted asters, prairie smoke, and a wild rose from elsewhere in my yard, plus sowed some swamp milkweed and hairy rose mallow seeds. It hit -30F that winter, and nearly everything (except for the prairie smoke) died. None of the seeds germinated.

The rain garden mostly got put on the back burner in 2019. It was taken over by various weeds and native volunteers. I did find some more ferns for it, but wasn't optimistic that they would make it. I also worked on a new fence.

 

The good news was that the rain garden was still doing its job of letting water runoff slowly drain away. Also, at least one monarch caterpillar took advantage of the common milkweed and smartweed that had popped up. (Monarch caterpillars can only eat milkweed, but they prefer to go elsewhere when they reach the chrysalis stage.)

Finally this year I picked up some plants to fill the pit in. Black eyed susan, purple coneflower, swamp rose mallow, a sunflower, and marsh blazing star. Some wild roses and asters also found their way in there, and the ferns are flourishing. One rose mallow has already died, but the rest of the plants are establishing themselves.

Once I get this rain garden established, I would like to make one along the edge of my driveway as well - but that one will be much more of an undertaking.

Brief Introduction

This blog will be a bit of an outlet and also a way for me to track the small victories in my messy urban garden.

Soil testing? Fertilizing? Nah, let's just throw a bunch of seeds at the wall and see what sticks.

I grow food, ornamental flowers, and native plants. My yard is happy green chaos.