Rewilding My Lot

The front pollinator garden doesn’t need a lot of maintenance, but after a couple of weeks of my being away it was time for a little tidy-up.

Specifically, the volunteer Spotted Beebalm aka Spotted Horsemint (Monarda punctata) had finished flowering and was lying on top of other plants that were actively growing.

This is a plant that I want to encourage in the nearby native wildflower meadow in the center of the front lawn, so I cut down the plants from the pollinator garden area, shook out seeds in the meadow area, and chopped up the plants into pieces to be left on the ground in the meadow (photo below is before chopping).

What that process uncovered in the pollinator garden was mostly a collection of Scarlet Sage (Salvia coccinea) seedlings that derived from plants introduced last year. The original plants didn’t survive the winter, but their self-seeded progeny live on. In most cases, I allow these seedlings to grow where they land, although sometimes I move them or pot them to give away. There’s a close-up photo of one at the top of this post.