Welcome new members!

https://www.reddit.com/r/GardenWild/comments/bwef4e/welcome_new_members/

created by SolariaHues on 03/06/2019 at 18:55 UTC

23 upvotes, 10 top-level comments (showing 10)

The community has grown! Welcome all new members.

If you have any queries about the community or just want to say hi, introduce us to your garden, or have a quick question, comment here :)

If you're not new, feel free to join in anyway! The more the merrier! :D

^(The community rules are) ^(here)

Comments

Comment by krumzily at 03/06/2019 at 20:17 UTC

8 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Hello everyone! Newbie here, but to introduce myself I love to garden (as I’m sure most people here do) and I love all of the wildlife I’ve been able to bring into my yard! I count all of my bees, lizards, birds, beetles, worms, and yes even squirrels as my pets and would love to learn more about how to care for them and bring more of them to my yard.

I took a gardening class at Foiloli Gardens a couple years ago and was very interested in the biodiversity section of the course and have been ever since! I’m hoping to learn a lot from you guys about how to improve my yard.

Comment by SolariaHues at 03/06/2019 at 20:11 UTC

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I'll get things going. Hi :)

I've been gardening for wildlife for years now. It all started with a meadow. That's all I set out to do at first, but I soon got the bug and more and more of the lawn has disappeared to be replaced with flowers - wild flowers, and flowers chosen for their pollen and nectar. I've added shrubs and trees, and a pond.. and I just can't seem to stop now.

It's all worth it. The garden sees many birds, bees, hedgehogs, slow worms (I saw 9 today digging the compost!!! Never seen so many before), frogs, tadpoles, butterflies, a wood mouse, and more.

I knew nothing of gardening when I started, I just wanted to help bees. Goes to show anyone can do it.

Comment by scrappykitty at 03/06/2019 at 20:53 UTC*

6 upvotes, 2 direct replies

I'm new too! I started gardening about 10 years ago when I bought my first house, which had a barren yard. I started out with veggies and whatever cheap flowers I could get. Now I almost exclusively garden with wildlife in mind (I have a couple tomatoes in pots). I just sold my house in Minneapolis, MN and moved to a heavily wooded neighborhood. I have a swamp and lots of trees, but the lawn is a butterfly/bee desert. Plus, I've got buckthorn and some garlic mustard. And lots of river rock. Big challenges ahead! Nice to meet you all!

Comment by coneflowermaven at 03/06/2019 at 21:03 UTC

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Hi! I'm in Zone 6b (New Jersey, USA). I have a smaller yard that was just grass and weeds when we moved in, and we're slowly making beds and planting native plants and gardening for wildlife. Every year we make progress and things start to look better! I still have lots to learn but love spending time in the garden looking at the plants and all the critters they attract. It's my happy place.

Comment by floydville at 03/06/2019 at 21:04 UTC

4 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Hello, fairly new here as well! Posted recently about releasing ladybugs into my garden and felt the community was very welcoming. I've mostly tended towards herbs and veggies but this year have made a concerted effort to add more natives and pollinators into the mix. Right now I've got milkweed, salvias, marigolds, mustards, bee balm, lemon verbena, lavender, nasturtiums, sweet peas, alliums, lilies, violas, and sunflowers growing for our flying friends. We have several fruit trees and put out a bird feeder and bath that gets frequented mostly by a pair of scrub jays and a few fat squirrels. My current goal is attracting Monarch butterflies. I also recently learned my neighbor a few houses down keeps bees so I am determined to give them a good buffet!

Nice to meet you all, thanks for reading ☺️

Comment by [deleted] at 04/06/2019 at 01:06 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Hi all I’m in Northern VA...been gardening for wildlife for over 20 years and just moved to my fifth house and have to start all over again on half an acre. and of course the new house is nothing but turf which I detest. So out goes the grass and in goes shrubs and small trees and and of course salvia, milkweed and butterfly bushes. Just some of my favorites. Good luck on your endeavors to help save what little we have left of this fragile planet.

Comment by UntakenUsername48753 at 04/06/2019 at 11:19 UTC

2 upvotes, 2 direct replies

I don't really have any love of gardening. But I moved about a year ago to a larger property, about half of which is wild/woods. There's lots of tall trees, but some were fallen and tangled up in others via vines. As I read about what the vines were, I began to realize much of my yard is invasive plants.

I've cut most of the oriental bittersweet that was pulling trees around, though I need to cut the ground stuff in the fall and roll on some herbicide to try to kill it, but at least the immediate threat of all that weight on trees should subside.

As I identified more stuff (with huge help from /r/whatsthisplant) and read more about natives vs invasives, I want the space I have to be helpful to native wildlife. I feel like it's an impossible task, but I've been taking out a lot of japanese honeysuckle and chinese privet. Once those are under control there is indian/mock strawberry, japanese wineberry, garlic mustard grass, mile-a-minute, who knows what else...

As I said, I'm not really that interested in gardening, so I'm not totally keen on paying a bunch of money for small plants that I'll probably kill. I did buy about 25 saplings from a county native plant sale, and I've bought some milkweed from a local school horticulture program. I also broke down and bought a black willow for like $20 that looked like an 8" dead stick in some dirt. It seems the stick part actually was dead, but there are new shoots coming off the base so hopefully it will grow fast.

I've also discovered trees are growing on their own, which is great. I have about 7-8 eastern red cedars that are 1-3' tall growing on the edge of the woods. I relocated one to a more open space where hopefully it will thrive. And there are some maple and I believe elm (maybe black cherry though) trees that are 2-3' tall. I relocated one maple but I did a bad job and it's barely alive. I've had about 6 trees fall since I've been here, which had me somewhat concerned, but seeing new ones grow up is encouraging.

Anyway... so I'm mainly doing invasive control, but hopefully native plants will rebound on their own mostly. I'm a cheapo and probably not inclined/skilled at growing things from seeds to save money, so I dunno, maybe that will change.

Comment by _aw_168 at 08/06/2019 at 10:46 UTC*

2 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Hi! I live in zone 6b. ) I moved into my house last winter and just started my garden this year. I’ve always done veggies and herbs but this year I decided to do a bee/butterfly/bird garden. I also compost, ( I think I have a cold compost pile? I need to figure that out)

So far I have planted hosta, cleome, black eyed Susan, sunflower, dahlia, bee balm, delphinium, snapdragon and some others. I am open to learn as I am so new to this type of gardening.

Last year I had monarch caterpillars on my dill but I think something got to them. So I planted more dill this year hoping to see them again but so far nothing.

I have another garden bed I plan on clearing next year and want to plant some butterfly bushes.