Garden heliotrope (Valeriana officinalis) has been in my garden a long time. At the old house, I received a piece of it from a neighbor who had an equally old house and garden. It was growing in her garden when she moved in, and I considered it one of those old-timey plants that always grew [...]
Native/Invasive
Trilliums In My Garden: Wildflower Wednesday
May 22, 2013 – Posted in: Native/InvasiveTrilliums have charmed and fascinated me ever since my days as a Girl Scout, when I learned to identify a few wildflowers. With three leaves and three petals, trillium practically named itself (tri = 3) and was easy to remember. I never set out to have a trillium collection, but I've never turned down an [...]
Spring Ephemerals: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day May 2013
May 16, 2013 – Posted in: Native/Invasive, What's up/bloomingSpring ephemerals typically bloom in May here. We have many growing at our new home that didn't grow wild at our old home, plus there are many that I acquired through purchase or trade while at the old house that I brought over with me.Here are a few of my favorites.Bluets grew in the lawn [...]
Hepaticas on the Home Front
May 3, 2013 – Posted in: Native/InvasiveAlmost a month after I visited Tennessee, I walked down our country road to the same general area where I had seen trilliums and other spring ephemerals in abundance last year, and discovered hepaticas growing there as well. I must have visited this area too late to see them last year. Besides white, I saw [...]
White Sharp-Lobed Hepatica, My New Love: Wildflower Wednesday
April 24, 2013 – Posted in: Native/InvasiveEarlier this month I visited the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee, in particular the Bald River Falls. Frances of Fairegarden and I walked a trail that took us up behind the falls along the Bald River, and we saw many wildflowers as we walked. The one that stole my heart is known as Hepatica acutiloba. [...]
Winter Yielding to Spring: A Walk Down A Country Road
March 14, 2013 – Posted in: Native/Invasive, WeatherLes, A Tidewater Gardener, has issued a challenge he calls The Winter Walk-Off. The rules are pretty simple: "On your own two feet, leave the house and share what can be seen within walking (or biking) distance of your home. … Your post does not have to be about gardening or a travelogue, unless you [...]
Jack-in-the-Pulpit Bearing Fruit: Wildflower Wednesday
October 24, 2012 – Posted in: Native/InvasiveThis past May I shared with you how excited I was to find Jack-in-the-pulpits growing on our new land. I thought you'd like to see what one Jack looks like when it goes to seed: According to William Cullina in Wildflowers: A Guide to Growing and Propagating Native Flowers, every Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) has both [...]
Wetland Wildflowers: Wildflower Wednesday
September 26, 2012 – Posted in: Native/InvasiveOur property is divided by a brook running southwest to northeast. Shortly after the brook enters our property the land flattens out and the brook fills it up. When we first moved here we called it the pond, because it was a fairly big, though shallow, expanse of water. Maybe it was the drought, or [...]
Great Blue Lobelia: Wildflower Wednesday
August 22, 2012 – Posted in: Native/Invasive, What's up/bloomingSometimes plants surprise you. I recently came across this plant growing in front of the stone retaining wall of the parking pad. Ordinarily I would have considered any plant growing at the base of this wall a weed, but this plant had presence. I certainly hadn't planted it, and none were growing in the soil [...]
Celandine or Celandine Poppy?: Wildflower Wednesday
June 27, 2012 – Posted in: Native/Invasive, What's up/bloomingThere are three plants with yellow flowers called celandine in the British Isles: the Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus), the Lesser Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), and the Celandine Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum). Over here on the other side of the pond, the lesser celandine is not nearly as common as other buttercups and isn't mentioned much in North [...]
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