Part of our yard is a butterfly meadow, also sometimes called the prairie garden or — when the milkweed and thistle go to seed — the cloud garden. It consists of shoulder-high prairie grasses, clovers, wild strawberries, blackberries, black raspberries, milkweed, thistle, Queen Anne’s lace, and assorted other wildflowers. My partner mows a path through it, and occasionally mows patches to reduce thatch, but mostly it grows as it will.
Monarch Caterpillar on Milkweed
