Category: Newsletters and Member Articles

Blue mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum) is also known as hardy ageratum. This beautiful blue flowering native perennial is a prodigious bloomer with the staying power of eight weeks of flowers from late summer until frost. It is a valuable fall nectar source for butterflies and skippers, and other pollinators such as our native bees. The flower is in the composite family, but the flower head has only disk flowers and no ray flowers (petals). The flower can be blue, pink, purple, or white. Most sources say mistflower plants prefer moist, humusy soils that do not dry out in full sun to partial shade, although you can find a source that says they are drought resistant. I have it in both types of growing conditions, and it thrives in both. It never grows more than three feet tall and does well along ponds, in wildflower gardens, or naturalized areas. This is not…

“No Mow Zone” areas were established by Gwinnett Parks and Recreation three years ago in all county parks.  Part of their goal was to establish native plant growth and provide habitat birds, pollinators and critters.  At Bethesda Park, one of the areas was a grassy, lawn-like section on about a 45-degree slope from the walkway down to the lake behind Bethesda Senior Center.  As a team of GCMGA members maintain the area around the Senior Center and the Butterfly Garden also behind the center, we decided to take the area on as a project to enhance the area with native flower seed, plants and grasses.  The area looks pretty ragged the first season and we heard quite a few negative complaints from the those who walked by.  We explained what we were doing when we had the opportunity and finally erected our own sign explaining the purpose of why the…