Joe-Pye weed grows along the seasonal brook at the edge of our property

The dusky mauve color complements the goldenrods also in bloom at this time

Three eupatoriums are fairly similar. I know my Joe-Pye weed is Eupatorium fistulosum because I cut one open and saw that it has hollow stems. The other two, E. purpureum and E. maculatum, both have solid pith, but E. maculatum has spots on the stems. According to William Cullina in Wildflowers: A Guide to Growing and Propagating Native Flowers of North America, “the names are used interchangeably in the trade, and there is some confusion about the identity of several selected cultivars. …[But] all make excellent garden plants.” However, the USDA says my Joe-Pye weed is actually Eupatoriadelphus fistulosus.

As you would expect from a native plant, the blossoms attract a variety of wildlife.

A bumblebee and a moth share the wealth on Joe-Pye blossom. Do you know the name of the butterfly?

Posted for Wildflower Wednesday, created by Gail of Clay and Limestone, to share wildflowers/native plants no matter where you garden in the blogasphere. It doesn’t matter if we sometimes show the same plants. How they grow and thrive in your garden is what matters most. It’s always the fourth Wednesday of the month!

Click on the photo for a list of plants

I’ve been growing two varieties of H. arborescens: ‘Abetwo’, which has the trade name Incrediball®, and ‘NCHA1′, which has the trade name Invincibelle® Spirit. I think both of them are far better choices for a cold climate garden than any macrophylla.

Invincibelle Spirit

When I first saw photos of Invincibelle Spirit, I wasn’t sure I liked the color, but I’ve found it much more pleasing “in real life.”

Invincibelle Spirit fits in well with other plants in a border

Invincibelle Spirit Hydrangea and Black Negligee actaea

Incrediball

Perhaps you’ve seen this image of the world’s largest hydrangea blooms?

Incrediball hydrangea. Photo courtesy Proven Winners

Incrediball's flowers are in scale with the rest of the shrub

The one weird thing about Incrediball is all the flowers are blooming beneath the leaves.

The blossoms are hiding underneath the leaves.

We’ve spent a lot of time fussing and fretting over that other hydrangea, but I thought it was time to highlight a few hydrangeas that earn their keep without being catered to. How about you?

Proven Winners sent me Invincibelle Spirit and Incrediball to trial in my garden.

I join Helen Yoest of Gardening With Confidence this week to talk about Colchicums on Web Talk Radio. They will be blooming in about a month, you know.

Tree Survival Tips for Summer Heat via The Wired Gardener http://bit.ly/bvVLTi. The Wired Gardener is a newsletter, now become a blog, of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s McClean Library. It almost always has a link to an online gardening resource I hadn’t heard about, and now includes helpful blog posts about current gardening topics, such as this one about caring for trees when it is unusually hot.

The American Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) is a native shrub that grows in the ditches and hedgerows here. As you can see it has attractive white flowers.

American elderberry, Sambucus canadensis

Elder flower

We don’t eat the flowers. We just enjoy looking at them, because we are waiting for the berries.

Elderberries. Photo by me'nthedogs

Not to worry about the lack of sweetness, because we harvest these berries for pie:

Elderberry-Apple Pie

I discovered this in the 1974 edition of Farm Journal’s Country Cookbook, after my husband brought some fresh picked elderberries into the kitchen, and informed me they were used to make pie.

2 crusts pie pastry
2 cups elderberries from American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis)
1 1/2 cups tart apples — chopped and peeled
1 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons quick cooking tapioca
2 tablespoons butter

Wash and stem elderberries. Combine elderberries, apples, sugar, salt, and tapioca, crushing berries with back of the spoon. Spoon mixture into pastry-lined 9″ pie pan. Dot with butter and top with lattice crust. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, or until apples are tender and crust is golden.

Of course, the birds like the berries, too, so you have to beat them to the berries.

I’d be interested in hearing how you use the flowers or berries in cooking.

Update: Found a list of wildlife that appreciate the elderberry. Thanks to Gail for the term “faunal associations” which enabled me to find that page.

Photo of ripe elderberries by me’nthedogs. Posted for Wildflower Wednesday, created by Gail of Clay and Limestone, to share wildflowers/native plants no matter where you garden in the blogasphere. It doesn’t matter if we sometimes show the same plants. How they grow and thrive in your garden is what matters most. It’s always the fourth Wednesday of the month!

Lily Lake at Chenango Valley State Park

The cell phone camera is pretty good for a cell phone camera, but when it comes to small things that move in the slightest breeze, well, it’s a tough job for a cell phone camera (though I won’t rule out operator error). There is one plant I couldn’t identify and of course that is the one where the blossom came out blurry. If you can recognize this plant by its leaves, its overall habit, or its blurry flowers, please tell me what it is!

Overall habit of the mystery plant

These are the leaves. The flower stalk is visible emerging from the middle of the photo.

The flowers are pink. The one all the way on the right is sharpest.

Do You Know the Name of This Plant?

I have been through all my wild flower reference books, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s common, because I’ve leafed through my reference books many times and it doesn’t look familiar. I even tried calling the park office, but they’ve been busy every time. So I appeal to you, my readers, for help in identifying this plant.

Helen of Toronto Gardens correctly identified it as Desmodium glutinosum. Thank you, Helen! Now I can sleep at night.

I hate the plants that can survive a cold winter but can’t take a hard spring frost. It is so aggravating! The problem is they emerge too early from dormancy for their own good. I’m talking about:

• 

  April 29, 2006. Endless Summer hydrangea literally nipped in the bud.

  ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea. It will get through a USDA Zone 4 winter but break into leaf long before the last spring frost. Which would be fine if those leaves could take a frost. But they can’t. I keep this shrub around for sentimental reasons. It reminds me of my grandma’s blue hydrangea–which was dead hardy for her on Long Island. I have learned if I bury it in leaves in the fall and leave them on until June, it will fine.
• 

  One night at 27F does it in.

  Arisaema amurense. There are very few arisaemas hardy to USDA Zone 4. This arisaema, native to the Amur River valley, is supposed to be one of them, though other sites say Zone 5. Unfortunately it emerges from its winter dormancy in May, when we still have frost. Frost makes it lay down and die a premature death. It’s not pretty and it makes me want to cry. And that’s not pretty, either.
• 

  Native-born but can't deal with spring frost

  Arisaema triphyllum. I know it’s a native, you know it’s a native, but just try telling that to Jack. Our native Jack-in-the-pulpit can’t take the frost any better than his Asian cousin. How the heck did it survive all these years? Perhaps provenance makes a difference. This guy came from a relative living in the Hudson Valley near Albany. I really didn’t think our climates were that different, but maybe little things mean a lot.

Can’t Live With ‘Em or Without ‘Em

By now you have probably guessed that I don’t really hate these plants or I would have let them go to their eternal composted rest before now. Really I love them; I just hate their little sissy ways and how they make me work to keep them alive. I really thought it was going to get colder than 27F (-3C) last night or I would have made the effort to cover them. It might–might–have gotten them through. Another two degrees colder and nothing would have saved them, so I didn’t bother.

Why bother, indeed? I’m either hard-headed or soft-hearted. I keep telling myself each year that this year’s weather was an anomaly, that if I just help these plants pull through and build up strength, eventually they’ll be able to deal with a weird spring or two without my help. Yeah, right.

How about you? Are there plants in your garden that make you pull your hair out, but you just can’t part with?

The forget-me-nots go past that telephone pole in the back

I just wonder how this was done. Did they spray the denuded bank with seed? Did they hand-plant hundreds of seedlings? Is this its first year, or is it a recurring event? If so, how is it maintained? Yes, there are a bunch of dandelions in there, but without regular string trimming, first brambles, and then shrub and tree seedlings will show up and take over. Something like this takes a lot of work, and I tip my hat to the gardener.

They’re having a plant clinic over at Garden Rant, and I decided to submit the perplexing, premature leaf drop my ‘Autumn Brilliance’ Juneberry exhibits every year. The leaf drop was addressed in today’s clinic, but since they didn’t show all the images, I thought I’d share them here.

This is what my Juneberry looked like about a week ago

By late June, some of the leaves show spots and the berries are starting to turn color

By early July, some leaves are starting to turn yellow. They will soon drop.

Here's what the leaves look like in early August

By mid-August, the tree is about three-quarters defoliated.

The native, wild-grown Juneberries hug the edge of the field.