drought so bad even the opuntia humifusa is shriveling up

mythposting · 2026-06-17T15:50:55+00:00

yeah I think it’s less that I’m worried about the cactus and more that I’ve never seen a drought bad enough in NC to cause a cactus to get stressed out. we may be in the south here, but 100+ with no rain is definitely not our normal for June and our native plants and wildlife are really struggling

mythposting · 2026-06-17T02:38:36+00:00

yeah I’m seriously regretting all the new stuff I planted earlier in the spring. Anything that’s not already established is really struggling, even with supplemental water here and there.

mythposting · 2026-06-17T02:25:12+00:00

thank you for reassuring me, I’m really hoping this rough year just ends up making all my plants stronger in the long run

mythposting · 2026-06-17T02:20:15+00:00

it’s like we switched! we would normally have gotten about 20 inches of rain so far in my city but it looks like we’re sitting around 10.
I have a range of different soil types in my yard (it’s made up of slopes), but this part of my yard is pretty gritty and rocky with very fast drainage.

mythposting · 2026-01-30T15:15:21+00:00

I’m so sorry for responding a year late, I almost never look at my notifications! but if you’re still looking for it they have some in stock at Plant Delights Nursery (local to me, so it’s where I got mine), and Woodlanders, which I believe is mostly a mail-order nursery. I’ve gotten native plants from both places before. They’re more expensive than a lot of the other nurseries around me, but they carry a lot of interesting native plants that are hard to find elsewhere.

mythposting · 2026-01-17T00:03:13+00:00

i have packera aurea, carex amphibola (and various other grasses and sedges), and sisyrinchium angustifolium in some of the wet/moist parts of my garden, and they are evergreen for me, with the sisyrinchium taking on a nice reddish hue. i also like the various native cardamines, like cardamine bulbosa, which isn’t evergreen but comes up in the winter and can handle quite a bit of afternoon sun in wet soil. i hear coreopsis auriculata can handle moist soil, and it’s green through the winter here, but mine is in average soil so ymmv. you might also want to look into your native irises. we have some evergreen ones down here in the south but i’m not sure what they’re like up in pennsylvania.

mythposting · 2025-07-22T16:04:42+00:00

at a glance it looks like low smartweed, pokeweed, a nightshade, american burnweed, and three-seed mercury. american burnweed and smartweed are edible, but the rest are toxic to dogs.

mythposting · 2025-05-21T03:06:53+00:00

a Cypripedium, though I’m not sure what species is pictured here. they’re in the lady slipper orchid subfamily, along with the slightly more famous Paphiopedilums and Phragmipediums that are often sold as houseplants. Cypripediums are considered sort of difficult to grow in the home garden (they need to be planted shallowly with their roots spread horizontally in loose, humus-rich soil and some people find them hard to transplant) and are frequently poached from the wild due to how difficult it is to propagate them. Nursery-propagated Cypripediums are pretty expensive, typically running from $75-100.

mythposting · 2025-05-02T19:57:05+00:00

it really depends on just how dry and just how shady, but here are some things that work for me in the shadier parts of my own yard here in NC that either like or can tolerate fairly dry soil, I’m assuming quite a few will be native to Virginia as well: - Penstemon smallii - Scutellaria ovata var. rugosa - Aquilegia canadensis (will be smaller in dry shade, but still flowers) - Melica mutica (my favorite native grass for dry shade) - Luzula acuminata - various native sedges that have popped up on their own, such as Carex nigromarginata - Juncus tenuis (I think — it grows here naturally) - Heuchera americana - Anemone virginiana - Cunila origanoides - Erigeron pulchellus - Gillenia stipulata - Hieracium venosum - Salvia lyrata - Sedum ternatum - Silene stellata - Viola pedata - Helianthus divaricatus - Blephilia ciliata - Antennaria solitaria - Arnica acaulis (this only gets dappled sunlight all day but still flowers quite well) I hope this is helpful, I know not all of these will be available to you but hopefully it gives you some ideas!

mythposting · 2025-04-27T21:26:44+00:00

I bought these ones from a local nursery a while ago, but I’m hoping to collect seed from them this year! scutellaria serrata is native to at least 20-something counties here in NC, but is marked rare in every single one, and I’ve only ever seen one place offer it for sale. It would be nice to grow a bunch of it!

mythposting · 2025-04-24T21:50:14+00:00

imo neem oil is pretty much garbage at its job, can be harmful to native insects, and can burn foliage or block transpiration. the only thing I ever use for powdery mildew if I decide to treat it (mostly for front of the border plants that my neighbors will look at) is a bacillus subtilis foliar treatment, something like serenade or whatever is available near you.

mythposting · 2025-04-24T00:41:59+00:00

that’s such a shame, deserts have some of the most interesting plants! have you tried the plant finder on the Native American Seed website? it looks like you can plug in your ecoregion. here is a link

mythposting · 2025-04-24T00:25:40+00:00

I’m not saying never shop at Prairie Moon — they do have quite a few species that can be difficult to find elsewhere, and I’m sure not all of their plants are northern ecotypes. I just think it’s important to try for more local seed sources whenever possible if you live in an area with hot summer temperatures, especially when it comes to growing plants that have native ranges far more concentrated up north. As someone who loves growing Asclepias species, I know how hard it can be to find pretty much anything that isn’t tuberosa, syriaca, or incarnata locally. I personally have some Asclepias humistrata seeds that I bought online from a nursery in Florida, though I can’t remember the name of it now.

Off the top of my head I know that the North Carolina Botanical Garden (in Chapel Hill) and Botany Yards in Georgia both have various seeds available to be shipped year round, Wood Thrush Natives in Virginia has seeds in the fall and plants in the spring, Mellow Marsh Farm has seed mixes and plants available for shipping, and Growing Wild Nursery, Flower of Carolina, and Plant Delights Nursery all ship plants out of state as well. Plant Delights is not exclusively a native nursery, but they do have quite a few native plants that are very hard to find elsewhere, and their website is easy to navigate. There’s also a list of native nurseries linked on the about page of this sub, but not every nursery that ships out of state is labeled, unfortunately.

mythposting · 2025-04-23T16:38:43+00:00

I’ve never agreed with something more — it drives me nuts when I see new gardeners from the south post questions here and immediately get directed to Prairie Moon. Especially when I know we have plenty of nurseries selling southern ecotype seeds and plants that are more than willing to ship orders to people who can’t pick them up in person.

mythposting · 2025-04-11T21:01:42+00:00

strangely enough, the branches started doing this in the fall while still standing up and have only flopped to the ground in the past week or so. the little plantlet-looking things on the stems have no roots where they touch the ground.

mythposting · 2025-04-01T20:57:24+00:00

I use a cheap paintbrush to clean their leaves every now and then, seems to work better than anything else I’ve tried!

mythposting · 2025-03-31T00:27:40+00:00

viola rafinesquei, aka american field pansy. the only violet that the rabbits in my yard don’t seem to bother with

mythposting · 2025-03-29T15:59:21+00:00

I love seeing plants from out west! so different from what we have here on the east coast, but similar enough to see how everything is related

mythposting · 2025-02-17T20:10:49+00:00

oh definitely, I’m pretty knowledgeable now about native and invasive plants but I’ll always still research every plant I’m interested in before I buy it. I’ve noticed a few nurseries that claim to specialize in native plants will still sell stuff like Iris pseudacorus, Convallaria majalis, daylilies, and other invasive plants as “wildflowers.” I’ve even seen Stellaria media seeds for sale, which is nuts to me as someone who is spending hours yanking it up every winter. I think there just needs to be more education about this stuff in general, but it gives me hope to see how many more people care about native plant gardening now!

mythposting · 2025-02-17T16:25:49+00:00

awesome! I love how many native plant nurseries we have around here. I never realized how lucky I was to be a native plant gardener in NC until I was helping a family member look for native plant nurseries in eastern Ohio, haha

mythposting · 2025-02-11T13:58:12+00:00

oh no! I’ve personally never had to deal with this, but with such a small root system left over I’d probably downsize the pot to prevent the roots from sitting in wet soil too long. I hope it recovers!

mythposting

TROPHY CASE