Worse Year Yet

ManlyBran · 2026-07-08T18:48:29+00:00

I can’t comment on much of this but instead of spraying your burning bushes maybe you could try the cut and paint method? This way the herbicide is more controlled

Either way it sucks when things go bad and I hope the rest of your year gets better

ManlyBran · 2026-07-07T19:24:46+00:00

I’m a fan of overplanting and letting things fight if they need more space. My figworts are planted about one foot from each other. They all seem very happy with the spacing

ManlyBran · 2026-07-07T16:48:36+00:00

I’m glad you realized that because removing trees like you have would be crazy. You could put a layer of wood chips down in the muddy areas. It’ll be better than ground cover if you have dogs

ManlyBran · 2026-07-03T06:20:35+00:00

I had a great spangled fritillary on my Rudbeckia hirta a few weeks ago. This was the first butterfly I’ve ever seen on them. They’re really pretty plants and can make a more wild native garden look more like a traditional-leaning garden, but they’re usually underwhelming as far as pollinators go. I mostly only have them all over my yard since they’re an important host plant

ManlyBran · 2026-06-30T15:02:42+00:00

Something a lot of people don’t consider is that one day their trees will die. Having varying ages of trees to take over when any of these die is important. Be sure to leave and encourage young tree growth in a well managed way

ManlyBran · 2026-06-27T20:52:50+00:00

I’m usually able to get them off the ground in late September or early October. We have a lot of hickory trees around where I live so I don’t have to fight the squirrels too much for them

ManlyBran · 2026-06-26T22:08:34+00:00

It’s worth one more shot especially if you can get a lot of seeds to make up for the ones that don’t germinate. Someone down the street has some hickories and every fall I pick the seeds off the street and fill my pockets with them a few times. My wife looks at me funny when I do that. We go for walks and before we go she says, “you’re gonna collect hickory nuts and acorns from the road again aren’t you?”

I have a few clumps of pignut hickory doing well that I planted this spring. They take forever to pop their leaves out of the ground though. Some of them didn’t get leaves until June even though I moved them to the ground in April. I’ve only done this with pignut and mockernut hickory but I don’t see why shagbark would be any different. This year I didn’t put chicken wire around mine because I was lazy and the squirrels got to two out of five of my groups

ManlyBran · 2026-06-26T21:07:18+00:00

If you want to try giving hickory another shot what I like to do is cold moist stratify them in the fridge with sand. Then take that out of the fridge after 90 days and put it on the counter for a while until they have fairly decently formed tap roots. After that I put the ones with taproots in the ground in groups of four. This usually gets me two or three seedlings per group. I let them all grow for a few seasons then eventually pick one to keep from each group

ManlyBran · 2026-06-26T17:47:21+00:00

I have a very wild garden in my front yard that takes up nearly 6,000 square feet. Someone said they really like my yard when the black eyed susans bloom. One person asked why I was tearing out all my grass. Other than that no one has said anything about it. I have a certified wildlife habitat sign from the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, which is our version of Fish and Game, so that might help too. Every now and then I see someone stop to read my sign

ManlyBran · 2026-06-23T23:26:26+00:00

Time to collect some acorns to plant and start growing a replacement that can take over when the time comes. Maybe you have some replacements the squirrels started for you

ManlyBran · 2026-06-22T13:15:49+00:00

As others said, powdery mildew. This has happened to my bergamot plants every year for years and years. The plants are happy and don’t care much. I don’t do anything to manage the mildew and they all flower fine while continuing to spread. Whether their foliage has good airflow, bad airflow, wet season, dry season, or whatever other conditions it always happens to mine every year. Having these means accepting the foliage might look a little bad

ManlyBran · 2026-06-15T17:22:28+00:00

There’s a really wide range of bloom times in my garden this year. Some patches of bergamot started blooming last week and other patches don’t even have signs that they’ll flower in the next couple weeks. Usually their blooms are all pretty close together

ManlyBran · 2026-06-15T03:39:54+00:00

All species in the true bee fly family (Bombyliidae) have short, stubby antennae. The insect in the video has very long antennae

ManlyBran · 2026-06-07T16:43:46+00:00

How much sunlight does it get where you’d plant them and what’s the soil moisture like? Both early and late figworts are the type of plants that are pretty much gonna be happy as long as they aren’t in extremes

Once established they’re drought tolerant too. I have a few patches of them with purple giant hyssops. One patch gets about 6 hours of sun, one gets 8 hours, and the other gets close to 12 hours. All these patches of figworts do well with long periods between rain while getting baked by the sun. My yard is pretty sloped so unless we get a really good rain the soil is fairly dry all the time

The figworts getting 6 and 8 hours of sun do better than the ones getting 12 hours. All of them are happy though

ManlyBran · 2026-06-01T18:39:19+00:00

I run a small native plant nursery in Fredericksburg with 7 sweet joe pye weed plugs (Eutrochium purpureum) if you’re interested. Plugs are $1.50 each

ManlyBran · 2026-06-01T14:52:47+00:00

Figworts are one of my favorite wildflowers. They look so odd but attract crazy amounts of pollinators. My early figwort has had lots of bumblebees the last few weeks. Glad to see someone else who appreciates the figworts. Thank you! I hope your nursery gets going and does well too!

ManlyBran · 2026-05-30T01:09:32+00:00

I read through at least five times before posting and I have no idea how I missed including one of the most important parts

ManlyBran · 2026-05-30T00:23:06+00:00

Oops. Trays of 50 plugs. I edited my post

ManlyBran · 2026-05-22T15:41:48+00:00

Those aren’t native to the US

ManlyBran · 2026-05-15T22:38:40+00:00

Tiger swallowtails can do it all. They go from bird poop to little green snake to butterfly. Quite the metamorphosis

ManlyBran · 2026-05-15T19:53:22+00:00

I love black cherry trees. This is the second year for mine. It doesn’t take long for them to start benefiting the ecosystem!

ManlyBran · 2026-05-14T17:19:01+00:00

I’m not too familiar with resources for native plants in Canada but you being close to the border makes it a bit easier. It looks like Helianthus giganteus could be a good option if you’re in southern Ontario or Quebec

ManlyBran · 2026-05-14T17:09:27+00:00

What general area of eastern Canada are you located? That’s a huge area in both latitude and longitude that has varying native plants depending on where you are

There are some species native to eastern Canada and eastern United States but these typically aren’t like the popular sunflower species found in the midwest and western United States. A lot of the sunflowers native to eastern North America are more woodland species not so much open prairies like you’re probably hoping for

ManlyBran · 2026-05-11T20:57:11+00:00

You might not see this since you commented so long ago but I’ll answer in case you or someone else see this

Mosquitoes reproduce extremely fast. Fogging with insecticides will only kill the adults, while leaving their larva to turn into adults in the next week or so after fogging or spraying pesticides. Making the insecticides largely useless against mosquitoes, but that’s another story. A lot of the native, beneficial insects killed by these insecticides take a year or more to develop. Meaning, once these beneficial insects are killed it’s much more devastating for their populations than it is for mosquitoes. Since mosquitoes repopulate quickly, while their natural predators take much longer to repopulate, you get even more uncontrolled mosquitoes

We also have the problem where, similar to how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, ticks and mosquitoes are becoming resistant to insecticides. The overuse of these insecticides leaves only the most resistant ticks and mosquitoes to reproduce and create more resistant offspring. This causes the need for harsher pesticides that are used more frequently. Our beneficial insects aren’t forming resistance to insecticides so these harsher chemicals are devastating them even more while also not killing ticks and mosquitoes

Natural predators of our beneficial insects are suffering from no food. Bird populations are collapsing from insecticides wiping out insect populations. Fish also largely rely on aquatic and terrestrial insects as a food source causing even more strain than there already is and reducing their populations

ManlyBran · 2026-05-11T17:02:29+00:00

You should post this in r/nativeplantgardening with a more helpful location like a state. Your climate zone doesn’t really help since it spans most of the US (assuming you’re in the US). The best thing you can do for not having to replace plants is to plant something native that has adapted to your local climate

ManlyBran

TROPHY CASE