Painted Lady Butterfly
So, grubs decided to make a feast out of our yard, and we grew tired of mowing that steep hill. The solution? We decided to transform it into a native prairie landscape, complete with a cool switchback trail. We'd been toying with this idea for a while but got stuck in the whole overthinking phase. Then, this year, we said, "Let's just do it!"
We laid down some plastic, and the neighbors were like, "What on earth are you up to?" We patiently waited six weeks for that hill to let go of its crab grass and pepper weed stranglehold.
Now came the challenge of figuring out what to plant. We hoped someone would magically provide a step-by-step plan, but no such luck. So, off to Gertens we went, and we basically bought every native prairie plant they had (probably more than we needed) and a bag of native short grass prairie seeds. But then, we just stared at them, not planting a thing.
Fiery Skipper
Our main worry was that if we removed the plastic, a massive rainfall might decide to wash our hill and house away (little did we know it'd barely rain again). So, we dove back into research until we stumbled upon Sandbaggy.com and their eco-friendly coconut husk erosion control blankets. Game back on!
With our established wildflower bee garden already at the top of the hill, we improvised our way through digging a switchback trail (we had no clue how, but it worked), planting over a hundred plants (random spots, but they survived), and sowing some seeds (no idea how much, we just winged it).
Lo and behold, things started growing, and surprisingly, they were the things we planted! Partridge Pea, Sky Blue Aster, Big Blue Stem, Little Blue Stem, Blue Grama, Side Oats Grama, Black Eyed Susan – they all showed up! Then, the bugs made their entrance: Monarchs, Black Saddlebag Dragonfly, Fiery Skippers, Sphinx Moths, Black Swallow Tails, Silky Striped Sweat Bees, and tons of other bees!
Now, we walk our trail every day, multiple times even, and there's something new to see each time. It's a constantly changing wonderland. Today, we had a visit from what I believe was a Pine Warbler and a new fly called a Narrow Headed Marsh Fly. The only downside, we hardly use our backyard anymore.
We hope this encourages you to seed or plant some pollinator plants yourself. It's truly been a thrill.
