Native Plant Talk

A couple of days ago I went to the website of Ozark Nursery in Joplin to get their phone number to call and see if they had sweet potato slips. They didn’t have them but I saw on their Facebook page that they were having a “native plant talk” today and tomorrow. I debated about whether I should tell Vince about it because I knew he would want to go and I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to go.

I told him and yes, he wanted to go and he called and signed us both up for today’s session. We went and I could have sat there all day and listened to that guy (Nathan) talk. He’s a young guy but he obviously eats, breathes and sleeps native plants. Vince and I both left saying “He loves what he does!” I could read and study native plants for the next 10 years and never know as much as that young guy knew.

He had lots of info on plants that will attract birds that eat bad insects and how to attract different kinds of butterflies.

After listening to him, I wanted to come home, till up the entire yard and plant it all in native plants and have no grass to cut. We won’t do that but we did buy a few plants. They’re all in the garage because we may have storms tonight and tomorrow but next week we should be able to get them planted. All except for the sunflowers go in a bed by the house. I think we bought two of all these except for the rattlesnake master and I had a hard time convincing myself that we needed even one of those. The name!!

I’m not even sure of the species but it was in with the native plants so for all practical purposes, it’s a “sunflower”.

I’m still not sure why we got that one. It can be invasive and puts out LOTS of seeds. That doesn’t sound so appealing to me. It does attract pollinators and a host of butterflies and wasps that eat harmful bugs. Just what I was hoping for – attracting more wasps! 🙂

A coneflower. I love those. We have a few of those already. They require so little attention and they bloom all through the summer.

Bee Balm – I love this too. We’ve grown this everywhere we’ve lived except Texas.

Anise Hyssop attracts bees and butterflies and the leaves and blooms are edible (for humans).

This is really another type of bee balm. All bee balms can be a bit invasive since they spread through their root system but they are fairly easy to control. Not at all sure where we’ll plant all this but we’ll find a spot somewhere.