Michigan Wildflower Farm

09/25/2026

760 native plugs. One suburban lawn. 🌱

On Tuesday, our crew transformed a stretch of turf into a new native garden, putting hundreds of Michigan-adapted plants in the ground.

The planting is now in place, but the real transformation is just beginning. As these plants establish and grow, they’ll provide food and habitat for pollinators and other wildlife and bring a little more life back to the neighborhood.

Here’s a quick walk around the finished planting. 🌼🦋

09/25/2026

On Tuesday, we turned a suburban lawn into a little piece of Michigan habitat. 🌱

760 native plugs went into the ground, replacing turf with a diverse planting designed to provide food, shelter, and resources for pollinators and other wildlife.

It’s easy to look at a lawn and see empty space. Native plants show us what that space can become.

One garden at a time, we’re bringing more life back to the landscape. 🌼🦋

09/23/2026

From full bloom to harvest 🌱

Cup plant is a powerhouse of Michigan’s prairie and meadow ecosystems, its tall blooms provide nectar and pollen for native pollinators, while the seeds feed birds later in the season. Its distinctive leaf cups also collect water, creating tiny drinking spots for insects and birds.

A beautiful native with a big role in the landscape. 🌻

09/22/2026

09/17/2026

Freshly harvested Golden Alexander (Zizia aurea) seed 🌱

A beautiful Michigan native with an important role in our ecosystems. Its early blooms feed native pollinators, while its foliage serves as a host plant for Black Swallowtail caterpillars. Every handful of seed carries the potential for another generation of plants, pollinators, and wildlife. 💛

09/16/2026

Freshly harvested nodding wild onion (Allium cernuum) 🌱

One of Michigan’s understated native gems. Found in prairies, savannas, and open woodlands, nodding wild onion supports native pollinators and adds another layer of diversity to our plant communities.

Not every useful plant needs to be a superstar. Sometimes the quiet ones are doing important work right under our noses. 🌿

09/10/2026

🌿 Harvesting Common Milkw**d

Today we were out in the fields harvesting one of Michigan’s most iconic native plants: common milkw**d (Asclepias syriaca).

Milkw**d is often talked about primarily as the monarch plant, and for good reason. Monarch caterpillars can feed only on milkw**ds, making these plants an essential part of their life cycle. But common milkw**d supports a much larger community than monarchs alone. Its fragrant flowers provide nectar for bees, butterflies, moths, beetles and other pollinators, while its leaves support a whole community of insects specially adapted to living on milkw**d.

And then there are those incredible pods.

The silky fibers attached to the seeds are remarkably light and buoyant. Indigenous peoples and later settlers found numerous uses for milkw**d fiber, including cordage and stuffing, and the floss was even collected for life jackets and other applications during World War II.

Common milkw**d also has a fascinating history as a wild food. Young shoots, flower buds and immature pods have all been traditionally gathered and eaten. The young shoots are often compared to asparagus, while the unopened flower clusters and tender pods can be prepared as seasonal vegetables. Like many wild foods, knowing the plant and traditional preparation methods is part of the process.

Its medicinal history is another fascinating chapter. Butterfly milkw**d (Asclepias tuberosa) is much more familiar in Western herbalism, particularly as pleurisy root. But common milkw**d has also appeared in traditional herbal materia medica. I first became interested in its medicinal virtues through the work of herbalist Michael Moore, whose Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West documents common milkw**d among the traditional medicinal plants of North America.

A species that can be simultaneously food, medicine, fiber, habitat and an essential part of the monarch's story.

Common milkw**d may be considered a w**d by some, but spend a little time watching a patch of it and it becomes pretty clear that it's an entire ecosystem growing on a single plant. 🌱🦋

**d

09/09/2026

🌿 Boneset Eupatorium perfoliatum

There’s something special about Boneset in a Michigan landscape. As summer begins to fade, it comes into bloom in wet meadows, lowlands, ditches, and other moist habitats, covering itself in clouds of small white flowers.

Those flowers provide valuable late-season nectar for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators when fewer native plants are blooming. Its preference for wet ground also makes Boneset an important part of Michigan’s native plant communities.

Boneset has a long history of traditional use, too. In Western herbalism, it has been used as a bitter, cooling herb for seasonal fevers, influenza, respiratory complaints, and body aches.

Boneset is strong medicine, not an everyday tonic. It contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids that can harm the liver, so internal use requires particular caution.

Here at the farm, we’re growing Boneset as part of our commitment to keeping useful, beautiful native plants in cultivation and putting more of them back into Michigan’s landscapes. 🌱

A plant for pollinators. A plant of wet places. A plant with a deep history of relationship with people.

Visit our website. Link in the comments. 👇

09/04/2026

Love them or hate them? 👀

The Chinese Mantis is one of the most recognizable insects you'll find around Michigan gardens and fields. They're incredible hunters, alien-looking, and undeniably cool.

But they're also a non-native species and they'll happily eat beneficial native insects right alongside pest species.

So what's your verdict?

Team Mantis?

Or team “beautiful, but invasive”?

👇 Tell us what you think.