Hit 50 native wildflower species in my backyard after 3 years of neglect

I stopped mowing a corner of my lot near Minneapolis back in 2020 and suddenly realized last week I can identify 50 different blooms out there, has anybody else accidentally created a prairie by just being lazy?

3 comments

3 Comments

kai_park1mo ago

Oh man, I gotta disagree a little... leaving a corner of your yard alone isn't really making a prairie, it's just letting whatever weeds and non-natives that are already there take over. Real prairies take a lot of work and planning to get established.

paul2511mo ago

Creeping charlie actually has more biodiversity than most seed mixes though.

reesemoore1mo ago

Tried letting a patch of my backyard do its own thing for two years and it turned into a mess of bindweed and thistle, not much else. But then I started tossing in a few native wildflower seeds I grabbed from a local nursery, just sprinkling them around that same spot. After about a season it actually looked like something, had bees and butterflies showing up left and right. Totally get what @paul251 is saying about biodiversity, but mixing in a little extra species made all the difference for me. You ever try seeding a spot like that on top of what's already growing?