Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder

Anyone else just need to sit in your late July garden and take it in? Unfortunately this was a Saturday which means my inconsiderate neighbor blasted his music, so I put some jazz over it. Just sitting & observing on a summer night❤️🌸
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #birdsky #hummingbird #pureMichigan

Throwback to 2023 when I grew #tithonia. I love it & so do the monarchs, but it takes SO long to bloom. Maybe I'll try to start some in March. Native to the southwest US & Mexico so I call it a #nativeannual here. #bloomscrolling #nativeplants #nectarplant #ecoregion50ae #biodiversityconservation

Exactly! I try to remind people of that when they buy native plants at the landscaping center where I work.

Saw this forever ago on facebook and share it every year.
#nativeplants provide food for so many wonderful critters❤️ Come to my garden and munch away!
#biodiversityconservation #homegrownnationalpark #Michigangardening 🌱

Almost time to find those native nutsacks in the woodland🫣
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #Michigangardening 🌱 #shadegardening #Cypripediumacaule

He's just a cute little red milkweed beetle #Tetraopestetrophthalmus
on common milkweed🌸 #asclepiassyriaca
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #bugsky #pollinators #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation #homegrownnationalpark #milkweedformonarchs

Yeah, we just ignore any prediction of the groundhog up here. We always have more winter, lol!

2 more months to wait up here in Northern Michigan before my plethora of native violets EXPLODE!💜
#violasororia #nativeplants #bloomscrolling #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation #ecoregion50ae #shadegardening

Monarch that hatched in my Kentucky yard back in 2020. Just hanging out on some scarlet beebs seed head 🌱
#nativeplants #nature #pollinators #biodiversityconservation #danausplexippus

🐝Bumblers & sunnies🌻
from Sept. 2022
#nativeplants #bombus #bloomscrolling #helianthusannuus #Michigangardening 🌱 #ecoregion50ae #pollinators

Motivated by the #WildOnes event on Saturday to get my #wintersowing going.... we still have time up here in the great ❄️ north. All #nativeplants, bien sûr.
Fellow Michigan 😶‍🌫️, what do you do with your old Lume bags? I have so many! The triple top fold worked great.
#seedstarting #ecoregion50ae

In that case, I had a party today!🎉🌾

💚Native sweat bees on butterfly milkweed🧡
Kentucky 2018 from my favorite pollinator field at Perryville Battlefield
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #bugsky #pollinators #nativeplantsfornativepollinators #PerryvilleBattlefield

Looks almost identical for qualifications. The Wild Ones is $50, you get a sign and cert, and you have to be a Wild Ones member. It looks like the NWF one is cheaper and you get some publications, but you have to buy the sign.

Guess what?? I got it!
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation #homegrownnationalpark #pollinators #WildOnes #certifiednativehabitat

July vibes🩷
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #echinaceapurpurea #penstemondigitalis #Michigangardening 🌱 #homegrownnationalpark #biodiversityconservation #elsasallnativeyard

👀

One of the more common bumblers in my yard is the brown-belted bumbler #bombusgriseocollis 🐝 I think they have buggier eyes than the others🤭
Bumbler on Joe back in 2022
#nativeplants #eutrochiummaculatum #bloomscrolling #bugsky #pollinators #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation

Thought I would keep the 'more rare to my yard' bee posts going.
Half-black bumblers #bombusvagans are ones I can't ID by myself yet! iNaturalist is such a huge help!
On foxglove beardstongue #penstemondigitalis and anise hyssop #agastachefoeniculum.
#nativeplants #bugsky #pollinators #bombus 🌱

Another rare visitor to my garden is chubby yellow-banded bumblers #bombusterricola but when they do visit, they always hit the false sunflowers #heliopsishelianthoides and blue vervain #verbenahastata🐝
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #bugsky #pollinators #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation

Honestly I don't know what variety this is as it was at my mom's house when they bought it. It does not do well in part shade and does not reseed, but spreads by runners when it was in full sun. I would think if you get straight species it would spread by seed and runners, and easy to keep going.

My drury's longhorn bees #Melissodesdruriellus love to sleep face down in my false sunflowers #heliopsishelianthoides EVERY year😍
These are docile leafcutters. Instead of collecting pollen on their legs like other bees, they collect it on their bellies.
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #bugsky

Of all my native plants, false sunflowers #heliopsishelianthoides tend to attract the widest variety of native bees. This is a broad-handed leafcutter bee #Megachilelatimanus I saw back in summer '24.
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #bugsky #pollinators #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation

Never mind jobs you had, tell me five classes you took at university.

1. Ancient Avestan
2. The Religion of Zoroaster
3. Phonology
4. Symbolic Logic (worst class ever)
5. Evolution of Disease

I finished college before I fell in love with plants and the natural world.

#bombus on #oenothera 💛🧡
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #Michigangardening 🌱 #homegrownnationalpark #biodiversityconservation #ecoregion50ae

Monarch #danausplexippus on Joe #eutrochiummaculatum in late summer 2025🩷
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #bugsky #pollinators #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation #homegrownnationalpark

Perfect camo💛
Goldenrod crab spider #misumenavatia on false sunflower #heliopsishelianthoides from a few summers back.
🌻
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #spidersky #arachnid #Michigangardening 🌱 #ecoregion50ae #biodiversityconservation #homegrownnationalpark #elsasallnativeyard

You're in the right place!

🐛Feels like a good day for some monarch cats from the garden this past season. On poke & swamp milkweeds #asclepiasexaltata #asclepiasincarnata #danausplexippus
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation #homegrownnationalpark #pollinators #ecoregion50ae

Lion's foot #nabalusalbus and a bumblebee #bombus in my part-shade garden. Grown by winter sowing from #PrairieMoon seeds in the 21/22 winter. August 2025 it finally bloomed🩷
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation #homegrownnationalpark #PrairieMoonNursery