How to Add Native Shrubs to an Existing Landscape Adding native plants to an established landscape does not always mean creating another flower bed. Sometimes the most useful addition is a shrub. A native shrub can quietly solve several garden challenges at once. It can give height to a planting that feels too flat, soften
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How to Unravel the Secret Life of a Seed Head What Happens After the Flowers Fade There is a moment in the fall garden when something subtle changes. The flowers that held our attention through summer begin to fade. Petals loosen. Colors soften. Stems turn from green to gold and brown. And where a flower
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How to Divide and Move Native Perennials in Fall There comes a point in almost every established native garden when something begins to feel a little crowded. A clump that once fit comfortably beside the path has slowly widened. A plant you loved in one corner would solve a problem beautifully somewhere else. Perhaps one
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The Best Michigan Native Plants for Fall Color Fall Color Is More Than Flowers There is a moment in a Michigan garden when summer begins to loosen its hold. The days are still warm enough to spend outside, bees may still be moving among the last flowers, and a few late bloomers are doing their
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How to Create Spaces Where Wildlife Feels Safe Michigan Garden Article No. 48 A garden can be filled with native flowers and still feel surprisingly exposed. There may be nectar for butterflies, seeds for birds, and water nearby, yet wildlife visits only briefly. A chickadee drops onto a seed head and disappears. A butterfly pauses
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Why Morning Dew Is One of the Garden’s Greatest Gifts Nature Notes | No. 7 | Published Sep 10, 2026 There is a moment in the garden that belongs almost entirely to morning. Before the sun climbs high enough to warm the leaves, before bees begin moving steadily from flower to flower, and before the
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Learning How to Trust Your Native Garden When the Garden Stops Looking Like a Plan There comes a point in almost every native garden when the gardener begins to wonder whether something has gone wrong. A plant appears where you do not remember putting it. Another grows wider than expected. A once-visible patch of soil
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How to Create Garden Rooms with Native Plants Your Garden Doesn’t Have to Be Seen All at Once One of the most interesting gardens I know is not a garden you can understand from the driveway. You have to walk into it. A planting partially hides a bench. A path curves beyond a group of
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Why Fall Is One of the Best Times to Plant Michigan Native Plants Spring may receive most of the gardening attention, but it is not the only season for new beginnings. By early fall, the garden has already revealed a great deal. You can see where a plant disappeared, where neighboring plants never quite filled
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How to Plan for Your Fall Native Plantings By late summer, your garden is giving you information that was much harder to see in spring. You can tell which plants became larger than expected. You can see where the afternoon sun really falls. You know which areas stayed damp after rain and which dried quickly.
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