Gardening is not without its challenges. Here are some plants that are not thriving:

White wild indigo

Planted in the spring of 2024, it has only shown one relatively short stem. Is it overshadowed by neighbours? There was a second one that seems to have died.

Royal catchfly

There were three of them, but only one seems to be growing.

Purple clematis

There were two bare root plants planted in the fall of 2025, and only one seems to be (barely) alive.

This area contains plants from the “Pollinator garden kit”, acquired at an Ottawa County Conservation District native plant sale and planted as plugs in the spring of 2025. Some of the flowers bloomed that same year!

We divided the kit into two parts and planted a chokeberry in the middle.

Species:

• Showy goldenrod
• False boneset
• Spotted bee balm
• Hairy beardtongue
• Frost aster
• Mountain mint
• Prairie coreopsis

This area has some flowers that bloom relatively early in the spring. The lupines were planted as plugs in the spring of 2024 and first bloomed in 2026. The rest of the plants were grown from seeds stratified in the fridge in 2025 and planted in the fall of 2025 (they haven’t bloomed yet).

Species:

• Sundial lupine
• Wild columbine
• Prairie smoke
• Jacob’s ladder

This area contains plants from the “Easy street patch” and “Hummingbird power pack” kits. This was one of our first experiences with native plant plugs. We planted them in the spring of 2024 and had a lot of blooms in the summer. Bradbury’s monarda and penstemons bloomed the following year. We also added some wild petunias, but they can get shaded by the taller plants around them, so some thinning is required.

Prairie dropseed

Purple lovegrass

Little bluestem

Plains oval sedge

Pennsylvania sedge

This area contains plants from the “Pollinator patch kit”, planted as plugs in the fall of 2024. It’s taking a while to fill out since the soil was quite heavily disturbed by a sewer pipe installation and is very sandy. However, a lot of volunteer plants started appearing in spring 2026. The milkweed appeared there on its own and is a great natural addition!

Species:

• Butterfly weed
• Lance-leaf coreopsis
• Mountain mint
• Pale purple coneflower
• Smooth blue aster
• Little bluestem

This area contains plants from the “Short and showy” seed mix (the 500 sq ft amount). The area was sown in the fall of 2024 and again in the spring of 2025. About 19 0f 46 species are growing. They don’t seem particularly short, maybe the soil is too rich.

This area contains plants from the “Classic tallgrass prairie garden” kit. This was one of our first experiences with native plant plugs. We planted them in the spring of 2024 and were rewarded with some blooms on the hoary vervain and New England aster the same year. However, the majority of the plants started blooming the following year, and some are still taking their time (ahem, compass plant).

This area contains plants from the “Pollinator garden kit”, acquired at an Ottawa County Conservation District native plant sale and planted as plugs in the spring of 2025. Some of the flowers bloomed that same year!

We divided the kit into two parts and planted a chokeberry in the middle.

Species:

• Shrubby St. John’s wort
• Sky blue aster
• Grass-leaved goldenrod
• Wild quinine
• Marsh blazing star
• Showy coneflower
• Wild columbine