Lupine Seedlings

Our house is situated on a gravel esker and the soil on the top and slope is very sandy and well drained. We therefore look for native plants that grow in similar conditions in the wild to add to our landscape.

Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis) was added last year and this spring we had a very nice display of flowers. The Wild Lupine is the host plant for the endangered Karner Blue Butterfly (Lycaedes melissa samuelis).

We ordered some Wild Lupine seed from Prairie Moon Nursery this spring to add to the southwest slope of prairie species area in our yard.

Prairie Moon provided an inoculant with the Wild Lupine seed to "aid in the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen and improve the long-term health of native plant communities" (Prairie Moon 2010 Catalog & Cultural Guide). The Wild Lupine is one of many native legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen and help provide this nutrient to surrounding plants.

The great thing about growing Wild Lupine is that their seeds are quite large for handling and the seedlings are robust for transplanting. It is an excellent plant to grow with children.

We cold stratified the seed for 3 days in damp sand in our fridge then sowed them in potting soil in 4" pots in early May. They germinated in 7-10 days.

Busy Bees

The bees have been very busy in the yard. The Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum) is one of the favorites at the moment. This bumble bee was weighing down the flower so much it nearly drooped to the ground.

Many of our native bees are solitary meaning they do not nest in colonies like honey bees. For habitat, solitary bees require cavities (like hollow twigs), plant material left on the ground and mud for nest building.
We have made nesting boards for solitary bees the last couple of years and hung them in the yard. This year, we have had really good success with this because we made the holes deeper (drilling them on the end of a 2x4" board) and also hung the boards in sunnier places.

This photo is a close up of a cavity mudded over. Most of the mudded over cavities have been by the Orchard Mason Bee (Osmia lignaria), a fairly small sized blue colored bee.
The female collects pollen and deposits it in the end of the cavity. Once there's enough food source for the larvae, she then lays and egg on top and muds in the cavity opening.

Welcome to Our Native Plant Landscape

We have been restoring our suburban landscape since we moved into our house in 2004. Since that time, 80% of our lawn has been converted to native plantings, we have removed 700 square feet of impervious surfaces, and have planted over 150 species of native plants.

We hope that along with us, you will learn something as we watch our yard restoration with native plants mature and change.

We expect to see more bird and insect species, the continuation of natives 'coming back' from the undisturbed areas and the overall improvement of our soil structure.

For a more detailed history please see the chronology of our work.