The mission of PLANT IT WILD is to foster greater awareness and appreciation of the fragile natural environment of our region. Through direct efforts we work to preserve, protect, and promote the natural beauty of the area and its plant communities.
We promote the use of native plant species by producing educational materials available at our meetings, booths, presentations, and through our website. Programs are offered from May through September featuring a wide array of speakers and topics on native plants.
Not sure which plants are native to Michigan? Click Here to view a list of some of our favorite plants from this beautiful state.
Click Here to join Plant It Wild and help us preserve, protect, and promote the natural beauty of the area and its plant communities.
Click Here to read more about who we are and how we strive to help the community be a more natural and beautiful place.
More information on critters who live in the leaves!What do salamanders, chipmunks, wood frogs, box turtles, toads, shrews, and earthworms all have in common? They all make a home in leaf litter! Butterfly, moth and even some bat species also rely on these leaves for food and shelter over the winter months. You can help wildlife by leaving the leaves where they fall. If you must remove them, consider mulching them into the lawn or use them in garden beds as a natural mulch and fertilizer to add nutrients back to the soil!
#LeaveTheLeaves
Love, love, love your goldenrods. Remember, they do not make you sneeze!!!!! Their heavy pollen requires insect pollination. Ragweed blooms at the same time. It is dull green and is WIND pollinated. Ragweed is what gets into your eyes and noses, NOT goldenrod.
So many asters from which to choose!!!!Our featured plant this week is White Woodland Aster (Eurybia divaricata), an early blooming aster that thrives in wooded settings with dappled shade. The small, bright white flowers with yellow disc centers really stand out on the dark colored stems. This aster is native to the the Eastern U.S. where it grows in dry open woodlands. Plants can form small spreading mounds, up to 2' high, that intermingle delightfully with other plants. Great for attracting wildlife, asters are very beneficial to late season pollinators when so many other flowers have finished blooming. Happy #WildflowerWednesday !
#bringyourlandscapetolife
#gardeninspiration
#nativeplants
#nativeplantsofnorthamerica
#habitatgarden
#fallcolor
#shadegarden
#wildflowergarden
#wildflowers
#woodlandplants
Did some research recently on the value of "leaving the leaves". WOWZER! I did not realize...
Of course we should know that lots of critters:
bugs and frogs and toads and snakes and spiders over winter in leaf litter and that birds will search for them for lunch. But is is the butterflies and moths that impressed me. The Monarchs fly south. Many stay right here.
As the gardening season is winding down, look around your yard. What do you think? After hearing Claudia West speak at the Wildflower Conference in March 2018, I began to rethink the idea of mulch. That July our very young... three season at most and first season for some... garden beds were on display for the Friendly Garden Club Garden walk. We mulched the heck out of multiple beds for an appropriate finished look. We have 1 bed, "the middle bed" or the shrub and tree bed" that required A LOT of mulch. After a bit of research, I asked Four Season Nursery to find a flat of potentilla simplex for me. There are several potentillas. Simplex is the ground cover. The first picture will be the middle bed in 2018 with the plugs. Next will be 2019 pictures of the bed and one with with the plant flowering. That last willl be a recent photo of the bed. The potentilla has spread, it has become the mulch. The bed needs only a bit of weeding from time to time, but far, far less than it would if I had left it a mulched bed definining each tree and shrub. As Claudia West said... plants "want" to cover the ground and will. It is up to us to choose which ones.