SPACE INVADERS! You've likely seen this one in your yard, your neighbors' yards, in the woods, on the side of the road, and so on. Garlic mustard ( Alliaria petiolata ) produces copious amounts of seeds and is "allelopathic", changing the soil with biochemicals to prohibit the germination and growth of other plants. It's a "biennial", living two years and generally producing flowers and seeds in the second year. But its "offspring", from those copious seeds (we weren't kiddin

Got burning bush ( Euonymus Alatus) in your yard? Let’s talk! Perfection isn't the goal Our goal here at Blue Stem Natives is not perfection and that includes not guilting our customers into having yards that are perfectly 100% native. Perfection, after all, is the enemy of good. Customers often come in to talk about native plants and tell us sheepishly that they have non-native plants in their yards. Hey, we do too! Peonies remind me of my wedding, tulips give some nice, ear

Happy New Year from Blue Stem Natives! May your 2024 be full of joy, good health, and native plants. The middle of winter has us thinking about what else...plants. Many of our wonderful customers are either brand new gardeners or newer to using plants indigenous to New England. This post is for you! If you are already reading this, we assume you already know "why native", if not you can read more about that here. How did we select these ten plants for our great-natives-for-be

Well, folks, we’ve made it to the end of another wacky summer. Hottest July on record (that was a rough one), and pretty darn rainy (although we are still far behind that wonderful summer of ’21 when we opened!). Like so many other gardeners, we have battled mildew and fungus issues, as well as a lot of aphid pressure. Fear not! These native plants are built to handle much of this up and down cycle. While you may be seeing some loss in your garden, I’d be willing to bet a lo

Ok, so here’s the thing. Two years ago I was sitting in my comfy chair penning a blog post all about how we were expecting the inevitable drought, and how you, the lovely gardener, could be preparing for that categorically inevitable onslaught of heat and dearth of precipitation. It was all quite dramatic, really. Queue one of the wettest summers on record. Didn’t I feel silly. The following season I was a bit more cautious and did my very best weatherman impression. We need