Flower and Native Plant Sections

2023

We planted flowers in two plant boxes and two in ground beds on either side of the garden. The petunias flourished in the box by the entrance to the garden and along the front of the bed south of it. An assortment of flowers from Babe's Blossoms was also planted in the box in the northwest corner. I planted a number of starts on the west side that were all native plants to the prairies of the Midwest. I also transplanted a big swamp milkweed from the pond area on the other side of highway 4 across from the tiling plant. All the flowers attracted many pollinators including butterflies, moths, bees, wasps and flower flies. I include some pictures below of them at work on the flowers. They are also crucial to the fruiting of most vegetables in our gardens. A white-lined sphinx moth, one of the most common hummingbird type moths, was a frequent visitor to the petunias and here are two links to videos of them visiting our flowers.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/xow1yAgTium5DQcT7

https://photos.app.goo.gl/dHaQFWZud1tYD2hb9

Eastern bed and box of flowers by the entrance. The salvia and butterfly bush were donated by Melissa Hillmann

Native plants in my shadow in the west bed.

Monarch butterfly on butterfly bush in east bed.

Painted lady butterfly on New England asters in native plant garden on west side.

Bumble bees on New England asters

A sweat bee (a small bee) on a New England aster

2024

Many perennial plants came up in flower plots on both sides of the garden. Salvia and butterfly bush came up a second year on the east side. Some of the petunias must have reseeded or came up from roots from the ones planted in 2023. We also transplanted in starts from both the FFA greenhouse at the GFW High School and from Farm Mercantile downtown. The swamp milkweed produced lots of seeds in 2023 and new plants came up in several boxes north of the native plant garden. I transplanted a few of them to spaces around my house and gave several to Diane, the retired veterinarian. There still were lots of them that were left and bloomed in some of the boxes. Almost all of the other plants in the native plant garden survived the winter and came up to bloom again in 2024.

On April 26 the salvia was already blooming and other plants were just getting started.

By August 23 everything was up and blooming.

On July 27 the box by our entrance was very colorful.

September 7 two monarchs were enjoying the white butterfly bush.

On July 11 black-eyed Susans, swamp milkweed, rattlesnake master, verbena and several kinds of sunflowers were blooming in the native plant garden.

On August 9 orange butterfly milkweed was blooming and had produced many skinny seed pods.

A Sulphur butterfly was pollinating some swamp milkweed flowers

Two leafcutter bees and swamp milkweed

Cicada killer wasp pollinating swamp milkweed.

4 cicada killer wasps on a dill flower near the native plant garden.

Monarch butterfly on swamp milkweed

Monarch caterpillar on swamp milkweed in our garden. One study said that swamp milkweed was monarch's first choice of different varieties of milkweed.

2025

I didn't take pictures this year of our flowers in the box by the entrance to the garden or the bigger beds on either side. I will show the flowers that were grown in the children's garden and the many pollinators that again came to our garden. I planted some Mexican sunflower seed heads on the south end of the garden that I was given by Maggie Buettner who plants and takes care of the sunflower field in Gibbon. They came up very thick and made a big patch there. I transplanted some by our house and gave a few more to others to put in their gardens. Many pollinators came to their flowers at the garden as well as around our house.