Closeup of flowers and leaves of Callirhoe bushii. Round, cup-shaped magenta flowers with five petals and pointed palmate leaves. The stems are stiff and run along the ground between other plants and pop up at the ends. Oklahoma Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a, June 2025. This plant was winter sown in 2023/2024.

A flower bed with scattered Bush's poppy mallow flowers coming up over an area about six feet in diameter, so that it looks like several plants. Other plants are blue mealycup sage, yellow daylilies, and coreopsis 'moonbeam'. Also, I left Iowa off my list of states, but this winecup is native in one county there.

Bush's Poppy Mallow is blooming for the first time in my front garden. This is just one plant, but it sprawls. Native to scattered locations in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas. Callirhoe bushii. #nativeplants #gardening 🌱 #oknativeplants #magentamonday

An entire Helenium amarum plant, forming a soft mound about the size of a basketball with fine grass-like foliage and many flower buds that are starting to open as yellow daisy flowers on top of the plant. Sometimes the plant can be shaped sort of like a lollipop with a thick stem and a foliage ball at the top. Oklahoma Crosstimbers ecoregion, USDA zone 7b.

Closeup of bright yellow flowers with a small furrow bee. The flowers have a round button center and wedge-shaped gapped ray petals with three lobes at the tips. The plant is named Sneezeweed because it was used to make snuff.

A small helenium amarum plant about the size of a softball with a few blooms, plus two seedlings. I only transplanted two small plants into the garden and scattered the seeds around them. This plant was dug up by an animal and the tap root bitten in half. I found it dried up on the ground and replanted it.

Bitter Sneezeweed is starting to bloom in my garden. Helenium amarum is native in OK, TX, and LA. It is an annual that will bloom even in mowed lawns, which is where I collected my seeds. (Also, it doesn't make you sneeze.) #nativeplants #gardening 🌱 #oknativeplants

A red columbine flower that hasn't finished opening. Aquilegia canadensis. The flower opens facing downward. It is a soft faded red color with five petals that are shaped like curved hanging tubes, ending up as little knobs at the top.

Dark blue spikes of Salvia farinacea in front of the more rounded white flower spikes of an Oakleaf hydrangea in the front east-facing bed.

The Asclepias tuberosa, or Butterfly milkweed, covered in packed round orange buds in the back garden.

Magenta winecups and red Murray's penstemon. Callirhoe leiocarpa and Penstemon murrayanus. Surrounded by a sea of Monarda citriodora, a big aster lurks in back.

Good morning, everyone! You might have noticed I haven't been posting much lately. I've been under the weather, but now I am infused with prednisone and ready to work again. Luckily, my plants go on without me. #bloomingnow #nativeplants #oknativeplants #gardening 🌱

Coral-red penstemons (Penstemon murrayanus) and magenta winecups (Callirhoe leiocarpa) in bloom. If you look deep in the shadows under the penstemons, you can see a clump of Little Bluestem grass that was meant to help support the penstemons. Maybe someday it will, if it doesn't get shaded out.

Same flowers from farther away. The green plants in front are orange milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa, and monarda citriodora.

Liatris pycnostachya (left) is coming up, and Asclepias tuberosa forming buds.

The new area I am working on is an oval shape in the middle of the lawn. It has a short green wire fence around it, and the plants inside have more wires around them to protect them from the dogs. Three tomatoes in grow bags are in the background, along with raised beds and an old wooden privacy fence.

The second year for this native planting in the back garden and the new area I'm working on. You can probably tell I hate thinning my plants. I really need to get busy and plant all my new seedlings in the next week or two before it gets too hot. #nativeplants #oknativeplants 🌱 #gardening

A pretty little plant covered with curled sprays of small lavender-pink flowers that shade to white in the centers. This plant seems much more floriferous than most of the phacelia I've seen in pictures.

I saw this phacelia growing in the middle of a dead/dormant shrub at the park. I hope I can get seeds before someone tries to clean it up. I believe it is Fuzzy Phacelia, Phacelia hirsuta, native to South-central US (AR, OK, TX, LA, KS, MO). 🌱 #nativeplants #oknativeplants #TinyFlowerTuesday

A seedling of Cream Wild Indigo, Baptisia bracteata/leucophaea. There are two oval cotyledon leaves that sit on the ground like shoes, a long springy stem with leaves high up in a shape like the clubs symbol from playing cards, then farther up the stem at the top, a little folded fan of new leaves forming.

Seedling plants of blue heart-leaved asters (top) and white heart-leaved asters (bottom) growing in plastic soda bottles. I am not sure of the species names because I gathered the seeds while walking the dogs and couldn't get good pictures of the plants. I believe the blue aster is Symphyotrichum cordifolium. The white asters look like some kind of Eurybias, but those are not supposed to grow around here, so I will have to wait and see.

The blue asters broken apart in wedges of soil, ready to be planted.

Two Callirhoe bushii seedlings in a milk carton and one Baptisia leucophaea in a soda bottle sitting in the grass.

More of my babies went into the garden today, cream wild indigo, blue and white heart-leaved asters, and two Bush's poppy mallows left over from last year's seeds. #nativeplants #oknativeplants 🌱

A small blue-black bee feeds on a tiny daisy flower that has a bright yellow center and white petals tinted with lavender around the edges. Ceratina bee (I think) and Astranthium ciliatum. I am growing seedlings of this plant, but this picture was taken at the dog park. Oklahoma, Northern Crosstimbers, zone 7b, April 2025.

Comanche Western daisy and a small carpenter bee. Info in alt text. #insectthursday #nativeplants #oknativeplants

Bright green sprouts of Passiflora incarnata emerging from a bunch of horrible muddy weeds called Lady's Thumb, I confess I'm under her thumb. I can't get in there right now to take a better picture because it's too muddy. The maypops are green fleshy shoots with a whorl of leaves coming from the top.

Foliage sprouts of hibiscus that look a lot like the maypops, peeking out from behind last year's woody stems. Hibiscus moscheutos.

The Maypops are popping! I was a little worried because they're late compared to last year, but it looks like I will have more than before, as is typical for maypops. Passiflora incarnata. The Hibiscus is also sprouting, so all my perennials have emerged. #nativeplants #oknativeplants 🌱 #gardening

A blue plastic wading pool with a leaky bottom is full of soda bottles and jugs with the tops cut off. Native plants are growing in most of them, and a few are still empty. I cover the whole pool with a tarp when it gets very cold.

Yellowish green foliage of Yellow Giant Hyssop, Agastache nepetoides, crowded in a soda bottle.

Three clumps of Yellow Giant Hyssop next to the back fence behind green wire fencing. I will need to select one plant in each clump to keep. I also planted some plants in larger pots.

Frankie sticking his rope toy in my face because he doesn't think I need to be taking pictures of thistles.

First one out of the kiddie pool is Yellow Giant Hyssop, Agastache nepetoides. I planted some by the back fence with the Partridge Pea and a few Tall Thistles that I moved from other places in the yard. #nativeplants 🌱 #gardening #oknativeplants

Partridge Pea seedlings growing in soil. They have medium-large waxy cotyledon leaves and a fan of smaller pointed leaves emerging from the center. Chamaecrista fasciculata. Northern Cross Timbers ecoregion, Oklahoma.

Another seedling growing in a pot is about the same size as the plants in the garden.

The bed in November after I cleared the grass from it. It is a narrow bed next to a wooden fence. There is a buried plastic grass border that is mostly hidden and a digging fork, rake, and spade leaning on the fence.

The same area is now full of weeds and hiding a lot of Partridge Pea plants.

When I plant seeds in the ground, I always try to start some in containers for ID, so I will be able to find them in the weeds later. These Partridge Pea seeds were planted in November by the back fence and January in containers. Host for Sulphur butterflies. 🌱 #nativeplants #oknativeplants

Mealycup sage foliage emerging from the soil next to last year's dry stems. The leaves are small, smooth, bright green, and have little teeth along the edges. I leave the stems standing in winter because they look nice and it helps protect the crown from the cold by trapping leaves, also from me stepping on them. Salvia farinacea.

Bush's Poppy Mallow (Callirhoe bushii) foliage rosette. The leaves are dark green, rounded and palmate on slender stems coming from the center. This is a perennial winecup flower that is somewhat rare in all the areas where it occurs. It is planted on the east side of my house because it can take a little more shade than most winecups.

A few signs of spring in my garden. The mealycup sages are emerging, and my Bush's poppy mallow waking up. It was the only one to survive my first attempt at winter sowing last year, but I hope I can get more seeds from it this summer and try again. #nativeplants #oknativeplants 🌱

Passiflora incarnata, Maypops vine growing in a flower border against a wooden fence. This vine showed up in autumn of 2023 and bloomed for the first time in 2024. It is the host plant for Gulf Fritillary butterflies, which also showed up in abundance. Native to much of the southern and eastern US.

Closeup of the weird lavender Maypops flower being visited by a green sweat bee. The red bristles in the center are where the nectar is found. This plant attracts tons of bees of all types, especially carpenter bees.

A purple pompom flower of Tall Thistle, Cirsium altissimum, being visited by a black Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly. This plant is native to the central and eastern tallgrass prairies of the US. It is an annual or biennial that spreads by seeds and not the roots, so it does not form giant colonies like some perennial thistles.

A large Symphyotrichum pilosum, or Frost Aster, covered in tiny white daisy flowers and all kinds of flower flies that are too small to see. This plant grows stems about six feet tall that bend over once it is covered in flower buds. I moved it from the front lawn in May. It is perennial and native to the eastern half of the US. This plant is one of at least three types of asters that showed up in my garden this year.

A shout out to some of the awesome native pollinator plants that volunteered for my garden last year for #Fridayflowers 🌱 #oknativeplants

A flowerbed in winter filled with dormant plants that are native in Oklahoma: Little Bluestem, Butterfly Milkweed, Lemon Bee Balm, Sweet Goldenrod, and American asters. Green foliage of annual winecups and lemon bee balm is visible through the dead foliage of the perennials. Northern Cross Timbers ecoregion, Oklahoma, December 20, 2024.

Dried flowerheads of Sweet Goldenrod, Solidago chilensis/odora. Fluffy sprays of pale beige starry flowers.

Dried flowerheads of Lemon Bee Balm, Monarda citriodora. They are shaped like seedy cupcakes spaced along a stem that pierces their centers.

Red-tinged waxy-leaved rosettes of Penstemon murrayanus or Cupleaf Beardtongue, growing in straw mulch. They are still pretty small, but they were practically microscopic when I planted them. Foliage of annual winecups (Callirhoe leiocarpa) is visible on the left side. The teeny seedlings around the penstemons are Monarda citriodora. The penstemons are native in Southern OK, not really where I live. I guess they are my cheat species. The penstemons and Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridis) are the only perennials that didn't bloom their first year.

The last 2024 pictures of the native plants I started from seeds last winter. Next year's annuals have already started sprouting. #oknativeplants 🌱