Planting Native Plants in the Front Yard
/I waited a day or so to plant the young plants – when the nighttime temperatures would not be dipping into the 30s again. I planted into the oak mulch that I had put down last fall. As I made the hole for the first plant, I noticed that the surface was dry but underneath for very moist. There were worms and small grubs and white fungus hyphae. The new plants are going to love it. Of course, this also means that plants I don’t want there were going to love it too….I will need to recognize and pull as they appear!
I planted 8 plants on the first day:
Wild Blue Indigo Baptisia australis and Cream wild indigo Baptista bracteate
Rattlesnake master Eryngium yuccifolium and Golden ragwort Packera aurea
Missouri Evening Primrose Oenothera macrocarpa and Nodding Onion Allium cernuum
Yarrow Achillea millefolium and Little Bluestem Schizachyrium scoparium
The Soapweed yucca Yucca glauca was planted the following day in a bed where I had to remove rocks and landscaping cloth. The bed is not covered by our sprinkler system and some of the plants previously there had not done well with the dry conditions.
Now that this first round of plants is in the ground, I am in monitoring mode….to water if it doesn’t rain enough and to pull weeds. I am expecting some elderberry seedlings that I will add to the front garden….and some pawpaw seedlings that will join one I planted last year in my back yard (completing the pawpaw patch).
