Hope this is an acceptable contribution here. I’ve been converting areas of my Midwestern yard to native plant habitat for the past 2+ years. It’s sparkling with fireflies tonight while the surrounding grass yards are dark. Gives me a bit of a boost to get ready for tackling the sprouts of pokeweed and thistle tomorrow.
That’s awesome! I’ve been seeing less and less of them here in the Northeast and it’s very sad. I remember mid/late summers just filled with them in the evenings when I was a kid.
Yeayyy that is great! I was concerned there didn’t seem as many in my yard here in the Mid-Atlantic, but they do seem to be building up in number as the nights warm up
That’s awesome. I miss nights when the fireflies were so numerous the yard looked lit up. I always assumed light pollution had a lot to do with it. How big is your native plant habitat?
Side note, look at stand up weed pullers for the thistles. It keeps you far away from the spikes and pulls from the root. Although thistle flowers are some of my favorite blossoms.
I see them in the trees at first in east Tennessee. They just slow flash for around a second. Now just starting to get some in the yard with the classic “J” bug dip as they light up. One of the best parts of summer.
I think they’re one of the things I miss the most having grown up on the edge of the midwest. I am in Europe now and we do not get them. They are magical.
I keep an area of my yard unmowed and pretty wild too by the forest edge, and there’s tons of em. Next step, get all the milkweed seedlings I’ve been growing planted out there and get the monarch butterflies to stop by. I’ve tried getting some native plants to my region started in there, but the deer just devour everything. So long grasses, wildflowers, and native milkweeds it is then.
I was really happy with how my coneflowers were turning out for this season (the narrow leafed ones are blooming and the orange ones have tons of buds). But the other night, some deer came through and chewed the buds off of all the orange ones and the goldenrod in the back. At least the narrow leafed ones escaped since they’re kind of fuzzy/prickly.
They can be relentless! I even planted a native wolfsbane once. Was told the deer would definitely leave them alone. Surely they wouldn’t mow these toxic plants straight to the ground… And they’re gone
