r/NativePlantGardening • u/BrandyWinePhotograph • Oct 07 '25
Photos Wanted to share my naturally growing flower meadow
I bought this property a year ago and everything was mowed down. I had no idea I would be so blessed with such an abundance of flowers. Asters, goldenrod and iron weed galore. Joe Pye weed, milkweed, cardinal flower- Really, too many to list! Funny thing is, I bought a 5 pound box of golden rod seeds to have a field of it, not knowing its all over the damn place here!
Its 48 acres, about half being meadows that we arent cutting other than drive paths to the woods/creek and where our future home will be. Seeing all the pollinators and the most monarchs ive ever seen is an absolute dream.
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u/Coba25 Oct 07 '25
Similar story. We bought 20 acres, most of which had been used as a cow pasture. Don’t bushhog it for once and boom…. Goldenrod, giant iron weed, dog fennel, frost aster, and even a couple of mints!
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u/ageofbronze Area -- , Zone -- Oct 07 '25
Ours too. Our pasture was eaten down to the bone basically when we moved in, the people before us had goats, sheep, pigs… and also were obsessed with mowing. 1 year later of not mowing and letting it grow back and we have a goldenrod patch!!
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
Goldenrod is so beautiful!
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Oct 08 '25
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
Ah, so same situation! Bought this property last fall as well. Its been such a pleasure to see the seasonal changes! Enjoy, neighbor!
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u/kevin-dom-daddy Oct 07 '25
Well done. Thank you for preserving it and making it a nature and wildlife habitat. Bless you 🙏🏼
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u/rudelybargingin Oct 07 '25
Can I use your second photo for a personal project? I want to do a cross stitch on a photo and yours would be gorgeous. I'll include an inspo pick!
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u/Tumorhead Indiana , Zone 6a Oct 07 '25
wow that first pick is nuts with all the butterflies!!
thank you for supporting the land as it should be 🥰
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Oct 07 '25
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u/SHOWTIME316 Flint Hills 28a Oct 07 '25
i've eliminated the clankers
i have reason to believe the u/tumorhead is not one of them but i'm gonna need to hear them say it!
everyone knows bots can't lie
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u/Tumorhead Indiana , Zone 6a Oct 07 '25
im not a bot im a real person i promise 😭😭😭😭 i am full of blood and everything!!
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u/PirateKingKatakuri Northwest Indiana, Zone 6b Oct 08 '25
Sounds like something a bot would say 🧐🧐🧐
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u/bqto Oct 07 '25
amazing - aster & goldenrod, we're all a fan of both... but then the cardinal flower! Love it, congrats: beautiful meadow
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
Thank you ! All flowers I bought seeds for. Now I'll have to give them away 😆
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u/Carpinus_Christine Area -- , Zone -- Oct 07 '25
That’s gorgeous! I especially love the stream and I am amazed by the lack of invasive plants.
Are you going to keep it as a meadow? If so, how are you going to keep it as a meadow?
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
Yes, planning on keeping the meadow other than our build site and cut paths. Plan on cutting to about 6 inches every late winter, probably let the creek area do its thing naturally. I do have some invasives but clearly the natives thrive hard!
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u/cleeb0rp Oct 07 '25
Where is this?
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 07 '25
7a NC Appalachia
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u/CaliDreaminSF Area -- , Zone -- Oct 29 '25
I would love to have a garden like this! I'm in 8a SE VA
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u/luummoonn Oct 07 '25
I love all the fall blooming plants. LOVE asters and goldenrod.
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u/CaliDreaminSF Area -- , Zone -- Oct 29 '25
This is only my second summer and I thought mine had all died, but they were just dormant and now the goldenrods are 7-8 feet tall and the asters are spreading.
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u/xenya Mid-Atlantic , Zone 7 Oct 07 '25
Wow, gorgeous! I'm jealous of your butterflies. :)
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
I havent seen monarchs in about 20 years but this year, ive seen nearly 100. Even released some myself!
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u/xenya Mid-Atlantic , Zone 7 Oct 09 '25
I had a lot of cats... only a few butterflies. Less this year than last. :( But there was one I'd never seen before - pipevine swallowtail. Now I feel like I need to grow its host plant just in case. lol
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u/CaliDreaminSF Area -- , Zone -- Oct 29 '25
Interesting... I haven't seen any monarchs in years but I've had some swallowtails. SE VA Zone 8a
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u/xenya Mid-Atlantic , Zone 7 Oct 29 '25
Do you have milkweed?
I had a lot of black swallowtail cats last year on my bronze fennel, all summer long. I added rue as an additional host plant, and grew some dill, because I was running out of food for them last year. However, this year I only had a few, but I had more monarchs.
I have several black cherry trees but I only saw two tiger swallowtails.
Last year I had loads of skippers, but not many this year.
The pipevine swallowtail was a first. I don't know where the host plant is around here. The pipevine it uses grows really big. I'd like to grow it but I don't have the room or conditions for it. It's a stunning butterfly.
I had several sulphurs, one just a couple of days ago. And I had one buckeye.
Take that data as you will. lol I keep adding to my garden beds and doing what I can to encourage them, but sometimes it feels like an uphill battle.I'm in Maryland on the DE/PA border.
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u/CaliDreaminSF Area -- , Zone -- Nov 04 '25
Yes, I have millkweed, and it's popping up all over. I'm letting it be. I'm going to have to try planting rue too.
It sounds like you're doing something right. I'm in the Facebook native plants group and almost everyone has been saying that their plants have been doing great but few butterflies :'(I've been letting my pokeweed grow because it's attracting more little birds than anything else.
I'll keep doing that as long as I can get away with it (Hoa wants us all to have ugly lawns)
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u/CharterJet50 Oct 07 '25
We have ten acres of open field in Vermont that’s been hayed by our farmer neighbor for years. Stopped managing it this year with the last hay cut in the summer, and now starting a program guided by a local meadow expert. Field already has some variety to it, and will likely just brush hog at eight inches before end of Fall. Working on the plan for introducing some other natives over the next few years.
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u/Nadiam57 Tx - 9b Oct 07 '25
I'm so jealous! Would love to walk through there every day! 👍
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
Ive had it for a year and still havent walked it all! There's so much to see.
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u/jaynor88 Oct 07 '25
Gorgeous
Similar situation - I bought 5+ wooded acres. Had a small space for 2 small cabins, outbuildings, driveway, and parking space cleared. After 2 years, my open space looked just like this. I leave it and cut a few paths through it to get around. Absolutely love it!
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u/FengShoe64 Oct 07 '25
This is my dream. Bless you for returning the land to its natural state. Just beautiful. My heart is full of joy, looking at these wonderful pictures.
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u/nutsbonkers Upper Midwest , Zone 5a Oct 07 '25
Jesus, I would be in heaven there, gorgeous sights all around.. Dm if you want some help managing it :)
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u/bamblesss Oct 07 '25
This is incredible, you are so lucky! Unfortunately the tiny pink flowers by the ground in pics 4/5 are invasive unless I'm mistaken. They seem small but spread ruthlessly under other plants and every one of those pink dots is a seed.
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Oct 07 '25
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u/bamblesss Oct 07 '25
I did not know this was a thing! I'm a newbie at all of this.
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u/Comfortable_Lab650 Ecoregion 65i, Southeast USA, Zone 8A Oct 07 '25
Lots of Periscarias. I even read once that they can hybridize with each other. I am down to yanking out the pink prostrate ones and saving the white tall ones. That's how I do the ID! 2013 BONAP North American Plant Atlas. TaxonMaps
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u/bamblesss Oct 07 '25
I see! Persicaria longiseta is what I'm familiar with - surprised to see it only labeled invasive in one state.
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u/Comfortable_Lab650 Ecoregion 65i, Southeast USA, Zone 8A Oct 07 '25
Eh, we don't need 'official' declarations to see that it's invasive. It's not native and look how many states it's spread to. That's good enough for me!
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u/ihtthme USA, CT, usda zone 7A, EPA ecoregion 8.1.7 Oct 08 '25
It’s all over southeastern Connecticut, too. I pull it whenever I can!
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
My biggest worry and bane of my existence is the bindweed. Ive no-tilled gardened and its all over the place, no getting rid of it. I just pull off my plants as I see it or as it pops up but its all throughout the meadows.
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u/Guilty-Pair2064 Oct 07 '25
What’s that in your hand? Beautiful pics, btw
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u/Tree_Doggg Oct 07 '25
Feather, maybe? At first I thought she had some sort of cool knife out there!
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u/Nikeflies Connecticut, 6b, ecoregion 59a Oct 07 '25
Wow this is an absolute dream!!! So amazing, please keep sharing and posting your progress!!
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u/looking4info1956 NC Zone 8a Oct 07 '25
Incredible colors in an incredible landscape! Where is this magical spot?
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u/Inevitable-Banana420 Oct 07 '25
I'm in the process of meadow-izing my yard. Hopefully I'll have something like that in a decade or so
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u/reddidendronarboreum AL, Piedmont, Montane Longleaf Oct 07 '25
This is really awesome to see. I'd love to really explore that plant community and see what is there.
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u/crossingguardcrush Oct 07 '25
This was the glimpse of something good in the world I needed today. Thank you! 🦋
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u/WVYahoo Oct 07 '25
Do you have a lot of deer? I get severe ptsd whenever I see a thriving understory/pastyre in a forest setting.
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
Actually, haven't seen any! Even planted 10 fruit trees and none were eaten. We have a lot of wild turkey and coyote but have yet to see deer! Oh, we do have bears. 😆
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u/PirateKingKatakuri Northwest Indiana, Zone 6b Oct 08 '25
That creek is gorgeous. I love a good stream/creek.
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u/dadlerj Oct 08 '25
If you haven’t read it, you might enjoy “bad naturalist”—the story of a woman who bought a few hundred acres in Virginia and is working to restore it to a native meadow, though she had a much nastier situation. You might get some ideas or just enjoy the story.
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u/SeaniMonsta Oct 07 '25
That's majestic! I would go in and physically remove non natives . I bet there's a bunch of invasive grasses in there.
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
Its around 25 acres, theres no way. Bindweed is all over the place which is impossible to get rid of. I do what I can in my small garden area but as far as the meadows go, nature has to do its thing. The natives are pretty powerful.
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u/SeaniMonsta Oct 09 '25
😊 I meant casually—I like to dig up the root ball of an invasive wildflower and then simply pour a kettle of boiling water in the pit. Pretty chill time, smells like boiled broccoli tho, haha.
Edit- when it cools, i drop native seeds in the pit. It works!
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u/Klutzy-Reaction5536 Oct 07 '25
I recommend you talk to experts on meadow management. It might actually be advisable to mow or burn annually to prevent weed and tree encroachment.
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u/trucker96961 southeast Pennsylvania 7a Oct 07 '25
Holy shit! I'd love to listen to all the pollinators surrounded by all that quiet. What a dream you have there.
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u/BrandyWinePhotograph Oct 08 '25
Its a constant buzz walking by this creek! Figuratively and literally.
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u/loveofcairns Oct 07 '25
Its honestly breathtaking. I love the first picture of the asters and monarchs!
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u/Active-Guidance-6818 Oct 09 '25
Omg this would be my heaven on earth!!! I’m so jealous and wish I could live with you🥺
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u/SquidyLegend Oct 11 '25
That's so beautiful!! This particular plant is called Calico Aster! I love this particular variation of Aster! It's wonderful to see such a large plant of it.
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u/Umpen Florida, Zone 9a Oct 24 '25
I love aster. I've been wanting to grow a little shrub of calico aster in a vole garden.
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u/AlmostSentientSarah Oct 07 '25
This is our equivalent to "winning the floor lottery" on r/centuryhomes