It started with a small patch of fleabane that popped up in the lawn right behind the house in early June.
Two weeks later came several right at the edge of the railing in the most shady spot of the front yard. There have been a couple here before, but this year they really took off. I called it a “fleabane forest” on Instagram.
Little did I know that it would be nothing compared to what happened in the backyard in July: a roughly six feet-by-six feet spot of solid fleabane.
I don’t care that it’s considered weedy; it’s cheery, and it is native.
Minnesotawildflowers.info recognizes three kinds of fleabane in Minnesota. I am pretty sure the early ones were Philadelphia fleabane. I’m leaning toward prairie fleabane for both of the other locations, and perhaps the difference in bloom time is simply because of different amounts of sunlight. All three varieties that grow in Minnesota are native, though, so I’m not overly concerned about getting the correct identification.
crystallofolia 
“I don’t care that it’s considered weedy; it’s cheery, and it is native.” No such thing as weeds, only suburbanites who think folks are supposed to live on golf fairways. I live in the woods of southeast Connecticut. (And lived near Minneapolis for c. 2 yr. when I was 8.) Your flea-bane resembles something in my yard. I admire your blog. I found it looking for info on snowberry clearwings getting caught in butterfly bush blossoms. I had 5 snowberries on my bush last week; just noticed a couple of ’em getting caught.
Thanks for the encouragement! I haven’t hard of clearwings getting caught in flowers – but since I’ve seen many cases of insects getting caught in milkweed blossoms, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. (See Trapped By Milkweed: https://crystallofolia.com/2017/07/26/trapped-by-milkweed/)