My yard was probably pasture for two hundred years before it became exurbia forty years ago, so it's fun to see native woodland flowers coming back on their own, especially when most of what shows up is stilt grass and garlic mustard and Norway maples.

I found two small false Solomon's seals when I was pulling thousands of Japanese cherry and Norway maple, and a redbud sapling at the woods edge. Where I cut down a huge forsythia/multiflora/honeysuckle thicket last fall I just found a Jack-in-the-Pulpit growing with a dozen seedlings.

The Jack in the Pulpit needs shade, of course, which is a very good excuse to buy some native shrubs...

And the Mayapples and Spring Beauty I brought in are happy, and the Dutchmans Breeches are holding their own, and the Celandine Poppy and Virginia Bluebells which might not be native to this very spot are spreading.

Even very disturbed land comes back; it just needs care and policing.

Lisa