Food Freedom Milwaukee

06/16/2026

Come out and support this great community garden!

06/11/2026

Now is you last chance to Chelsea Chop your tall native plants to prevent flopping. Also take down the overly aggressive canada goldenrod in order to preserve species diversity!

06/10/2026

Find out what we’ve been up to in our new newsletter-lots going on!

Check out this US Letter designed by Quinn Wilder.

06/09/2026

Lakeshore State Park in Milwaukee, WI, will feature a Monarch Flyway, with over 2,000 Wisconsin native perennial plants designed to attract monarch butterflies.

06/02/2026

https://youtu.be/j5xB_xmZvnQ?si=MnEwz9NmWyXj2e-C

05/31/2026

05/27/2026

https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE4MDY1NDk4NTA5OTQzNjky?story_media_id=3906023176826961539&igsh=OXA5cmFqOHFsZHVk

1 Stories. Latest story added on 26 May 2026. See insider moments and handpicked daily stories you won't find anywhere else.

05/26/2026

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYyXkwIMAWM/?igsh=dGVuZzh2Nzc0OWg3

05/24/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1GuCb6FVVC/?mibextid=wwXIfr

You should be planting goldendrod right now.

But not Solidago cansdensis or altissima; in fact when these inevitably blow into your garden they should be eradicated -- unless all you want is 5 foot tall goldenrod in a few years.

There are several other species that play nice in the more modest spaces of urban and suburban beds most of us employ. And they are powerhouses for nectar and pollen, especially for species migrating through at the end of the season or storing up to overwinter in nearby plant / leaf litter.

Solidago flexicaulis -- I use this one a lot in shade to dappled shade or east-facing gardens. In pure loam it can have a higher sociability (webinar on May 28 coming up to dig into this metric big time), but in our mostly clay or clay-loam soils -- with healthy density and plant competition more akin to what we'd see in the wild -- it is not a brute. Plus, when flowering, it smells like my late grandmother's perfume.

Solidago nemoralis -- This one has become a sun stalwart for me in just the last few years. It is a stud. Because it's shorter and also not incredibly social (in dense, layered plantings), it plays nice in front yard lawn conversions from an aesthetic standpoint. Plus, the seed heads almost rival the blooms imo. I'll see how long-lived it is, but expect it to be more an early-succession perennial as they tend not to love taller plants around them (again, perfect for shorter gardens).

Solidago speciosa -- It can get tall, so I limit it to the middle of a bed or large area or back of a bed. I've also experimented with ye olde chelsea chop, and am doing more so this year to see if it will still bloom but at shorter than 4-5 feet tall. Last year I think I snipped it back too late into summer, so this year I'm trying to do it by June 1 vs July 1 (I feel like it didn't bloom as much last year). I don't find this one to be a prolific seeder in dense, layered gardens, either -- but that's always the caveat. Density. Layers. Most of us think plants have to be spaced to breathe or something -- but that's not how it works in a meadow where there are dozens of plants in a square foot.

So get your C3PO on now. There are MANY more goldenrods out there to try.