Wildflower Wednesday

 It's the fourth Wednesday of the month, and that means it's time to show off the native plants blooming in our garden.

 Veronicastrum virginicum, or Culver's root, is one of my favorite natives.  The dark green foliage stays clean and beautiful all season, and the candelabra blooms are pretty cool.  Culver's root is easy to grow, very well-behaved, a beautiful plant in the garden, and we just love it here.

Stokesias are just about finished,

 while purple coneflowers are just starting to bloom.

 This ginormous plant way in back looks just like Joe Pye weed, with white flowers instead of pink.  It's a volunteer, though I've no idea how it got here since nobody surrounding us grows it.  Wherever it came from, I'm glad it planted itself here.

Liatris spicata needs protection in our garden, lest somebunny eats them.  These get only morning sun, and seem to be doing fine.  They've been here three years, and these are their first blooms.  Last summer after they were mowed down by critters yet again, I fenced them.  They join the growing list of plants with little fences surrounding them to thwart the dastardly rodents.

Asclepias tuberosa is blooming for the first time.  Added four years ago, it's a thrill to see it finally bloom.  They went dormant last summer during the drought, and that makes these blooms extra special.  I wasn't sure if they were dormant or dead last year.

What wildflowers are blooming in your garden this month?


To join the celebration of natives and other wildflowers blooming around the country and around the world,  please visit Gail at Clay and Limestone. 

Wildflower Wednesday

Monarda fistulosa

This summer's been rough on humans and wildlife, crops and livestock, lawns and gardens.  Still, with a little extra help from the end of a hose, our garden is weathering Mother Nature's and climate change's challenges.

With our early hot weather, plants bloomed early. Now, in July, that seems to have mostly leveled out, with most  bloom times pretty normal. What has been off is height.   A lot of stuff is shorter than usual - in some cases several feet shorter.

Lobelia cardinalis have their share of challenges this summer. One disappeared, one got smashed by a fallen branch during a recent storm, and this one . . . well, at least it's blooming.

They like moist soil, and live in an area of our swale that stays moist all year, normally . . .


This summer  has been lots of things, and normal isn't one of them.

Most of the purple coneflowers are two feet tall and under.  Most of the phlox, and everything in this part of the garden is shorter than usual.

Joe Pye Weed is a few feet shorter than usual, along with way-shorter-than-usual  Rudbeckia 'Herbstsonne.'   Besides being shorter, lots of stuff is less full too.

Nodding onions, Allium cernuum, seem oblivious of the heat and drought.

Culver's root, about finished blooming, is weathering the weather well.

A volunteer eupatorium (or do you say eutotrichum?) seems unfazed by the weather.  It's one of few July bloomers, whether native or  cultivar, that's its usual size.

Our small corner of the world has been hot and dry most of the summer along with much of the country.  Lately, there's been welcome relief with a few mid-80-degree days, and a few good deluges.  The occasional breaks from lugging hoses feel luxurious.

 

Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain. ~ Unknown

To see more Wildflower Wednesday posts, please visit Gail at Clay and Limestone.

July Bloom Day

Since the ballast shorted out for the light in our basement greenhouse late last winter and it took awhile to replace it, most of the overwintered plants looked pretty crummy this spring.  Turning misfortune to opportunity, it's been pretty nice having a fresh crop of plants for many of our containers.  The spindly, even leafless basement victims recovered in a sunny spot in the meantime, and now fill in pots and other spots in the garden.  Purple fountain grass and the chartreuse-leaved pelargonium  'Crystal Palace Gem'  are among the fresh faces this year.  

Geranium 'Rozanne' sprawls over early-spring bloomers like bergenia and hellebores, churning out blooms from late May through frost, even in part sun.  That's double impatiens in the hanging basket.  

Watering has been a chore during this hot, dry summer.  Most of the pots not directly in the garden have saucers to save water - especially the thirsty impatiens in little pots along this short path between patio and lawn.

The mini-rose has been blooming all season.

Hosta 'Fujibotan' has lavender-pink double blossoms on tall scapes.  It's just starting to bloom, and will keep going for almost a month.   This year it has twenty-one flower scapes!  

I love this combo of  Dragon Wing begonias and Diamond Frost Euphorbia.  

The peachy pelargonium and petunia in the pot on the left are basement survivors.  The geranium is five years old, and amazingly, Supertunia Vista Silverberry, fondly nicknamed Spring Fling Petunia, (gift from Proven Winners for participants at Garden Bloggers' Spring Fling Chicago 2009,) has survived three winters in the basement.

Cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis, a native hummingbird magnet, just started blooming.

Rudbeckia 'Herbstsonne' hasn't much liked our hot, dry summer.  They're two feet shorter, and not nearly as full as they normally are by the time they start blooming.  The first flowers are smaller too.   Behind the rudbeckias and coneflowers, Joe Pye weed is shorter than usual too.

'Sunday Gloves' daylily seems oblivious to the heat.

This brunnera was a volunteer seedling that popped up over here from a neighbor's plants.  It's the first time I've seen a brunnera rebloom.

We have heirloom potatoes from Landreth Seed growing in two of  the samples the nice folks at  Smart Pots gave me last August at the Independent Garden Center Show at Navy Pier.  Potatoes have nice foliage, pretty blooms, and they're fun to grow.  We're looking forward to harvesting our first home-grown potatoes in a few weeks.

Culver's Root, moved last fall,  seems to be thriving in its new, slightly sunnier spot along with a coneflower.  In the background, 'Blue Paradise' phlox, new last year and still small, just started blooming.  Geranium 'Biokovo' is reblooming for the first time, and barely peeking out from behind the tree, 'Jacob Cline' monarda is very popular with hummingbirds.  

Here's a different perspective where you can see the phlox and monarda a little better.  Heuchera villosa 'Mocha' shows up in this shot too.  Besides the nice foliage, this heuchera blooms all season long.

Bloom Day posts here tend to include a lot of closeups, so it seemed fun to change it up with some long shots this time.  Hope you enjoyed them.  To see more Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day posts that will surely include closeups and long shots of what's blooming in gardens around the world today, please visit our host, Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

A Seedy Wildflower Wednesday

There's lots to love about native plants and wildflowers, and thanks to Gail, garden bloggers celebrate them on the 4th Wednesday of each month, also known as Wildflower Wednesday.

Before celebrating our garden's wildflowers, I've got a bone to pick with Ruellia humilis, wild petunias, above.) They used to live in our back garden, and still weren't blooming after being there four years. So two years ago they were moved to full sun in front where they seem much happier. They're pretty plants, with nice, clean foliage, and sweet lavender-hued blooms. So what's not to love? Well . . . here they're the self-seeding-est plants I've ever grown! I'm not sure the ruellias will be sticking around much longer. I wanted them to bloom of course, but ended up with far more than I bargained for with their hundreds (thousands?) of seedlings. As a wise person once said, "Be careful what you ask for!"

Asclepias purpurescens - purple milkweed, on the other hand, has not been a thug.  In its third year, last summer it bloomed for the first time.  This year the blooms were far more impressive, but like last year they weren't pollinated.  I was sorry to see the flowers fall off last week with no sign of seeds.  This plant is being grown for Native Seed Gardeners,  Maybe next year we'll have seeds to send.  

It might be Erigeron strigosus or Erigeron annuus. Either way, it's native in Illinois, and in many other states. Common names include daisy fleabane. This was the only seedling that grew from a packet of marsh marigold seeds started last  year. It baffled me more than a little since the foliage didn't look anything like a marsh marigold. It was tended in a pot all through last summer, and planted in a nice, moist spot last fall just in case.

When it started blooming earlier this month and was identified, it was tempting to pull it out.  But it's grown on me.  It's actually a pretty plant and it's fun watching the goldfinches all over it, eating the seeds.  It makes me happy seeing them fed by our surprise wildflower. Daisy fleabane can be annual, biennial, or a short-lived perennial. I hope the goldfinches eat all the seeds, or at least that it's not a thuggish self-seeder.

Spigelia marilandica, also known as Indian Pink, bloomed early this year and is just about finished.  It will usually  rebloom later in the summer.  After three years I've yet to find a seedling.  So this year it was divided.  Hummingbirds love this plant, and so do I.  The red and yellow flowers are so unique and interesting.

Echinacea purpurea - coneflowers, of course, are just starting to bloom.  I had a hard time growing coneflowers here at first.  Cultivars would bloom for a season and never come back the following year.  Finally a few years ago I bought a $3.00 packet of Echinacea purpurea seeds.  They sprouted, grew, and bloomed their first year, and return every spring.   Some of the fancy cultivars seem to do well in other gardens, but here the natives do best.

Coneflowers can be pretty rampant self-sowers, but here, goldfinches devour the seeds, often before the flowers have even faded. It's rare to find a coneflower seedling in our garden.

Stokesia laevis, or Stoke's Aster might be the species, or it might be a cultivar.   Stokesias aren't actually native to Illinois, but they are in several southeastern states.  Ours came from a garden that was getting an  overhaul, saved in December as they froze in a heap of uprooted plants begging to be rescued.  The Stokesias and a couple of epimediums from that garden spent their first winter here in the vegetable garden.  They survived and were moved to their current homes in our shady backyard, and have been happy here ever since. Stokesia flower stems tend to get a bit  floppy from the weight of the blooms, but I like them anyway.  Even cultivars will  self-seed, but so far there haven't had any seedlings here.


Hope you enjoyed the wildflowers blooming in our garden this hot, dry June.  Please visit Gail at Clay and Limestone to see what's blooming in her garden, and follow the links to see more wildflowers blooming in gardens everywhere.

Wildflower Wednesday

Purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, has been a favorite native plant for as long as I can remember. Silly me, when first starting our garden, was lured by some of the coneflower cultivars. I won't tell you how much money I spent wasted on bigger, supposedly better blooms in various colors, only to have most of them die within their first season. I wised up and bought a packet of seeds, had flowers the first season, and plants that have all been perennial in our garden for a tiny fraction of the cost of those long-gone cultivars.

Goldfinches LOVE coneflower seeds. I'm not thrilled watching them pick off the petals, but I love seeing them come to the garden for the seeds, and the swallowtail butterflies and hummingbirds who enjoy their nectar.

Nodding onions, Allium cernuum, are about to bloom. Monica shared these with me when she came for a visit last summer, along with a few other native plants that are happily settling into our garden. The blooms of nodding onions can be pink, white, or lavender. (Ours are white.) They're happy in full to part sun, and are to said not to like hot summers. I'm happy they're doing well here in spite of our weather! All parts of the plant are edible. It's a very nutritious plant that was widely enjoyed by Native Americans and early settlers. The juice is said to make a fine insect repellent. (I'm not sure I'd want my skin to smell like onion juice!)

This is a young Culver's Root, Veronicastrum virginicum. It had a smaller, single bloom spike last year. This year's one bloom spike is a little bigger, but still not as impressive as the candelabra of spikes it will hopefully have when it's more mature. At about thirty inches, it's also much smaller than it's eventual five-foot mature height. Still, it's a lovely plant. The foliage has stayed fresh all season, and shows no signs of insect damage or any fungus, yellowing, or crisping whatsoever. Culver's Root is visited by many pollinators. You can see a list of them at the Illinois wildflowers website at the link above, where you can also see a photo of the blooms on a mature plant.

The roots of Veronicastrum virginicum have a long history of medicinal use by Native Americans, mostly for digestive disorders, and as purifying herb which induces sweating. It's believed the plant is named after Dr. Culver, an American physician and proponent of its medicinal uses in the 17th or 18th century.

Eupatorium purpureum's buds are just starting to turn pink. I divided these plants last spring - not an easy task thanks to their very tough roots. The plants resented having their roots disturbed and looked pretty awful the rest of the season. They've recovered very nicely though this year, although they're not as tall as they were before dividing them. The divisions are doing well in another area of our garden, though so far there are no signs of flower buds.

Also known as Joe Pye Weed, these very large, tall plants are wonderful in the garden. Another native with usefulness as a medicinal plant, they're grown here primarily for their ornamental value and attractiveness to pollinators. They draw lots of different kinds of bees, every butterfly in the neighborhood, and even hummingbirds thanks to their tubular flowers. The pollinator traffic on Joe Pye Weed is truly something to behold.

To see more Wildflower Wednesday posts, please visit Gail at Clay and Limestone, who hosts this celebration of native plants and wildflowers on the 4th Wednesday of each month.