This is what I have so far, and I'm using common names because they are just easier to type in:
For spring bloom:
Wild blue indigo
Purple coneflower
Orange coneflower
Wild bergamot
Stoke's aster
For summer bloom:
Butterfly weed
Pink swamp milkweed
Great blue lobelia
Button bush
Thread-leaf blue star
For fall bloom:
October skies aster
Raydon's favorite aster
Boneset/Joe Pye weed
Old field sedge
And this is where they are going:
Most of them, anyway. The other side is about 3/4 done, just in time for my shopping trip to the North Carolina Botanical Gardens' members' sale tomorrow evening. My goal was to get 3-5 different plants for each of the three blooming seasons so I can keep some bees, butterflies, and other pollinators happy, and so I can enjoy not only a blooming garden but a busy one.
We're fortunate that one of our county extension agents, Debi Roos, is an expert in pollinator plants and between her presentation in bee school last winter, her pollinator workshop last weekend, and her demonstration garden locally, I have tons of information available to help me along the way.
Another wonderful thing about the above photo is that we expanded that upper tier all the way to the fence and barnyard gate, eliminating lawn and the need for mowing and weedeating in there. We've done the same with the other bed and it's going to be so much nicer to have fun things growing and blooming than the grass and fire ant mounds!
I can't wait until spring!
That garden is going to be gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteI sure hope so. On the upper tier I'm putting some stepping stones into the middle for ease of working in there and maybe a little bench of some kind. The demonstration garden is around the building where our local co-op grocery store is and it is fascinating to watch all the insect action out there. Debi takes amazing photos of what she finds there - ranging from honey bees to native bees to wheel bugs to caterpillars and butterflies, spiders, various things eating other things. We have that here to a degree but the pollinator plants will attract them to one viewing area. :)
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