Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder

@beautyandwonder.bsky.social

870 followers 750 following 860 posts

All my photos. Hiker, gardener & iNaturalist ambassador🌿 Passionate native gardener & pollinator protector. Basket weaver & quilter. Cat mom🐈‍⬛🐈🐈‍⬛ AuDHD & easily distracted by moss, mushies & lichen🍄 ❤️Northern MI = home *happy in my naturey non-people bubble*

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 17d

💜Welcome to 20 seconds of my New England aster heaven💜 Sound up for BUZZ🐝
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #bugsky #pollinators #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation #homegrownnationalpark #bombus #mynativeoasis

4 9 60

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 5h

Best kind of rich!!

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 6h

When I moved from my native yard I left a notebook divided by months with how I cared for them, and the fabulous pollinators that came for them. I hoped that if they knew what everything was and how to care for it, there might be a better chance for it to remain. Good luck!

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 20h

We have been so busy this past week that we totally spaced on our first date anniversary, OCT 12, 2021. (Best man ever)
Posting this fabulous custom artwork by @keepyoursoftheart.bsky.social that was given to us for a wedding present by my bestie who knows me so well🌱😍 Isn't this amazing?
💚

1 4

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 20h

Blue vervain, Joe pye and culver's root all have super high germ rates for me when winter sowing.

2 4

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 3d

I'm a native plant purist and pollinator protector in the US. I believe everyone needs to know that
1) Honeybees are livestock.
2) Honeybees actually decrease biological diversity within flowers due to their foraging methods.
3) Plant native gardens to attract native bees & native pollinators.

7 14

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 4d

I found out there are no univeral landscaping abbreviations for mapping my garden, so I made up my own.
🫴Presenting all the things I've planted in my yard!🧐
98 different species, all in a half acre of front/side yard🤩 I'm all about some #biodiversityconservation.
#nativeplants #elsasallnativeyard

2 10

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 4d

😍

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 4d

Freaking amazing native plant, but don't plant it where you want it to be obedient. It won't ever behave, no clue why it is named that! I love it for my prairie patch where it easily kicks out turf grass. Great nutritious end of the year nectar for our native bees, too!

2 2

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 5d

Awesome! I was tickled to find tree frogs hanging out by them in August & September cleaning up the little insects. Who knew!

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 5d

Omg if only humans did this in the first place. Can you imagine that world?

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 5d

What well-loved milkweed looks like at the end of the season. But man, it made some serious pollinators, critters and tree frogs so happy!
Thank you to all my milkweed: syriaca, incarnata, exaltata, & tuberosa🌸 You all work so hard to feed our ecosystem.
#asclepiassyriaca #nativeplants #asclepias

3 8 71

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 5d

BEST. FEELING. EVER.
Congrats!

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 5d

INat is the best!

1 1

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 8d

Took a gorgeous fall walk yesterday at Aspen Park and found some orange polypores and the non-mating males of the elk herd.
#Aurantiporuscroceus #fungifriends #mushroomsofmichigan #nature #GaylordMichigan #northernmichigan #fallcolors #elk

1 14

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 9d

🧡Monarch on late thoroughwort🤍
#Eupatoriumserotinum
This was before the hard frost this week. Now the garden looks ready for bed.
#bloomscrolling #nativeplants #danausplexippus #bugsky #Michigangardening 🌱 #pollinators #biodiversityconservation

5 55

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 11d

Face down, Cotton Candy aster up...
One of my few nativars is the cotton candy ass, ahem, aster.. mainly for the name (and asters just kickass in general)🩷
#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #asteroblongifolium #bombusimpatiens #ecoregion50ae #pollinators #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation

1 33

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 12d

I wouldn't mind at all. #ecoregion50ae

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 12d

Good info! I always wondered why they were separate

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 12d

Swamper seeds in the fall breeze😍
#asclepiasincarnata #nativeplants #nature #biodiversityconservation #Michigangardening 🌱 #seedsaving #savenativeseeds #crazyseedlady

2 22

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 13d

I love all the bumblers, but tri-colored might bee my favorites🐝💛🤍🧡
#bombusternarius #solidago #nativeplants #bloomscrolling #bugsky #pollinators #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation #homegrownnationalpark #elsasallnativeyard

1 1 44

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 14d

Excellent question! Just looked it up and found a great article by the Smithsonian. Cows only ate it if there was nothing else to eat, and it would frequently kill calves and some bigger cows, too.
www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/h...

How an 1800s Midwife Solved a Poisonous Mystery

For decades before Doctor Anna’s discovery, “milk sickness” terrorized the Midwest, killing thousands of Americans on the frontier

www.smithsonianmag.com

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 14d

White snakeroot in bloom🤍
🌱
Favorite tidbit about this native- it killed Abe Lincoln's mom! She drank some milk from a cow who ate white snakeroot. 🐮😵
#ageratinaaltissima #bloomscrolling #nativeplants #Michigangardening

1 1 21

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 15d

They're a powerful end-of-the season pollinator favorite. You can find shorter hybrids, but these beauties are 4-6 feet tall💜

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 15d

Northern blazing star and a bumbler friend🐝💜
#liatrisscariosa #nativeplants #bloomscrolling #bugsky #pollinators #bombus #Michigangardening 🌱 #biodiversityconservation

3 6 80

Elsa 🌻 @naturalbeautyandwonder @beautyandwonder.bsky.social · 15d

Of course! That is a new england aster, fabulous native!