Meadow Garden Update

Three major meadow things...

1.  I have buds on different meadow flowers and some are open or beginning to open.  Not enough to take a picture, but I can see the various varieties maturing.  

The first were 2' tall yellow daisy-like flowers.  They started to fade away 2 weeks ago, but now there are new blooms.  Yay!  Maybe they will do that all Summer.

The next were some dozen 2" purple spire-shaped flowers.  I took a couple pics, but they are nearly invisible to the camera.

After that came some yellow daisy-like flowers similar to the earliest ones, but 2' taller.  And today, some purplish flowers opened on a 4' tall plant.

2.  While I was focussed on looking at the new flowers, I suddenly realized they were covered with honeybees and different odd smaller native ones!  Every flower I looked at had at least one, and they seemed very active.  They kept moving from one to the other.  Nor "beeing"a bee, I can't exactly judge what kinds of nectar various bees prefer.  But they sure seemed like "happy little busy bees".  I also saw a couple of butterflies.  And I'll bet there are some very small insects that are feeding and laying eggs there too.

3.  I spent 4 years ordering trays of native meadow plants from a good source.  And planting them directly in the meadow (as instructed) never worked.  So last year (having delayed direct-planting) I stuck them all in my 10 gallon tomato pots (3 per pot, rich soil).  And they just sulked there all Summer and Fall.  But this Spring, grew fast and lush.  They were suddenly a foot tall, so I transplanted them to the meadow.

Talk about sudden growth!  Those 4' plants I mentioned above were those 12" transplants in March.  If I hadn't stuck labels and orange landscape flags next to the new transplants, I would had have assumed they were growths from 1-2 years ago, finally established and maturing.  

But these all seem to be from the transplants this Spring.  I am thrilled.  And I can't wait for there to be enough flowers to post pics of them are close-ups and "overall".  

Seeds

Today I went around and snipped off all the flowerheads I could find in the meadow bed.  I figure they will do better if I keep them in the fridge over Winter, and spread them out next Spring.  I filled up a continer of rubbed-aoart seed heads.

Then I did the same for the bee/butterfly/hummingbird bed flowers. 

Then I did the same for the odd huge marigold that volunteered this year. 

3 containers of hopefully "self-sowing" seeds and I will try to help them in Spring.  I figure spreading them around rather than just letting seedheads fall in clumps will be a good idea.  We'll see.

Not The Meadow

A couple of years ago, I had a ridge leveled and set up 3 edged beds in place of it.  One was a Spring Bulb and Summer Daylily bed, one was for meadow flowers I hope will self sow (according the the package), and the last was a smaller bed dedicated to hummer/butterfly/bee flowers.  And on a whim, I scattered all my "expired" seeds of all kinds.

The last is finally showing some flowers.  First, I noticed that the "expired seeds were quite fertile.  I've been harvesting radishes for a month and there are squash, broccoli, and even some corn plants growing.  Well, they are all annuals and won't be around next year.  And I planted some annual sunflowers in the center of the bed.

But the actual hummer etc flowers are now starting to bloom!  They are slightly different from the meadow bed flowers.

 I expect there will be tubular flowers for the hummers soon.   Meanwhile, they are still happy with the butterfly bushes elsewhere in the yard.

I haven't seen many bees or hummers around them yet,  but I have seen a few butterflies.  Maybe it takes some time for word to spread of the new wonderful feeding spot.