Seed Collecting and Saving

Beautiful fall day in the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat!  It is a perfect day to collect seeds from native plants.  Our common milkweeds (Asclepias syriaca) are going to seed, so it is important to collect some before they all go poof in the wind.  Cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) and Partridge pea pods (Chamaecrista fasciculata) are also ready to be harvested. After collecting the seeds, you can replant them in a new location as soon as possible. They will germinate next spring.  If you are saving the seeds, be sure to give them time to dry out completely before you store them.  They will rot if not dried properly.  Be sure to label the envelope or container you store them in. Consider sharing seeds with others and help promote native plants.

MJ Frogge

Common milkweed

Partridge pea

Cup plant

It’s May!

The Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat has received much needed rain. It is raining right now! Plants have grown well and the habitat has greened up. Common milkweed, Joe-Pye weed, hoary vervain, bee balm, tall thistle, common yarrow, aster, penstemon, purple coneflower, goldenrod and cup plant are found in the in the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat. Master Gardener volunteers helped cut back dead plants, weed trees and spread mulch earlier this month. I added new blocks to the solitary bee house. We should be seeing leaf cutter bees soon. Spring is here.

MJ Frogge

Blocks with drilled holes and paper straws for solitary bees.

Common milkweed.

Joe-Pye weed.

Pollinator Week! What is Blooming?

Happy Pollinator Week!! It is a great time to visit the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat. So many wonderful plants are blooming in June. Rudbeckia, hoary vervain, common milk weed, butterfly milkweed, purple poppy mallow, common yarrow, beebalm and fleabane. All these plants are great for our pollinators.

MJ Frogge

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Summer Flowers

Amazing flowers bloom during the summer months. We have a great collection of native flowers in the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat. The weather has been good and we have had plenty of rain. Summer blooming native plants are so important to pollinators. It is important to have a variety and have them in mass plantings. Native plants that have bloomed in the habitat this summer include: purple coneflower, butterfly milkweed, two varieties of beebalm, black-eyed Susan, blanket flower, fleabane, vervain, chicory, swamp milkweed and lead plant. Enjoy the summer flowers!

MJ Frogge

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October Snow

Snow came to the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat overnight. It is a reminder that seasons change and winter is on its way. The trees are getting their fall color and the native grasses are beautiful with their tall seed head plumes. Milkweed pods are popping open and releasing their seeds and silky fluff. Nebraska is gorgeous in the fall.

MJ Frogge

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Milkweed

Milkweed is up!  We have common, butterfly and swamp milkweed growing in the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat. I am anxious to see my first Monarch in the habitat.  I know many pollinator watchers have had their first sighting already.

MJ Frogge

Fall Habitat Day

This morning Nebraska Extension Lancaster County Master Gardeners volunteered and helped me in the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat. We had plenty of wonderful rain this year. So the Habitat got a bit over grown. We found the path, bench and picnic table, they were all over grown with native plants and a few weeds. We took out the weeds, cut back a few native grasses, but left everything else. It is important to leave plant material in pollinator habitats for overwintering insects and praying mantis egg cases. Many wildflowers like milkweed and Rudbeckia are dropping seeds now for plants next year. Birds like, American goldfinch, are seed eaters. Leaving the native tall thistle is an important food source for them. I hope we have many more beautiful fall days like today.

MJ Frogge

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Butterflies!

We are finding many butterflies and skippers in the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat. Swallowtails and monarch butterflies numbers have increased this month. It is important to have a variety of annuals, perennials and native flowers blooming now through our first frost for our pollinators. Late summer and fall blooming plants include sunflowers, tall thistle, swamp milkweed, goldenrod and asters.

MJ Frogge

Monarchs!

Monarch butterflies and caterpillars have been spotted in the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat. Our habitat has over 300 stems of common, butterfly, swamp and whorled milkweed for monarchs and other beneficial insects. Please consider planting more milkweed and other native plants in your landscape to benefit pollinators.

MJ Frogge

June: Leaf Cutter Bees & Flowers

Lots of activity in the Cherry Creek Pollinator Habitat this month. Soni added new blocks to the solitary bee house. It did not take long for solitary leaf cutter bees to start filling them up.

There is also many flowers blooming this month. Common milkweed, butterfly milkweed, purple poppy mallow and yellow sweet clover.

MJ Frogge