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Shoutout to the guy at the Nashville Arboretum who changed my mind about native plants

I used to think natives were boring and messy, just weeds basically. But last spring I helped a friend plant a pollinator garden at his place in Nashville and saw a monarch caterpillar on a milkweed I put in. Now I'm slowly replacing my hostas with things like goldenrod and purple coneflower, and the bees are all over it. Anyone else make the switch from fancy ornamentals to natives?
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charlie_roberts87
I put in 50 milkweed plants last year from seed I got at the Nashville Native Plant Society swap and by August I had at least 20 monarch caterpillars. @karenm49 is right about the beekeepers too, one of my neighbors started keeping hives after seeing all the bees on my goldenrod patch. The best part is I barely water them now, they just handle the Tennessee summers on their own. My hostas always looked sad by July anyway, so swapping them out was the easiest move I ever made for my yard.
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karenm49
karenm4922d ago
I read Nashville is seeing a big jump in beekeepers because of native plants.
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