wildflower-wednesday

The earliest blooming flower in my garden is a snowdrop, Galanthus 'S. Arnott'. The earliest blooming wild flower is coltsfoot. But the earliest blooming native flower? For that, you have to look up. Way up. Because the earliest blooming native flower belongs to the red maple, Acer rubrum. I am always looking down at the [...]

The email from my neighbor to the south was ominous. "There's a plant I've never seen before on the north side of your property along the road. It's already grown into a big patch and I'm afraid it might be swallowwort." I had read that swallowwort was highly invasive, but I had never seen any [...]

At first glance, I thought it was a hydrangea. But I don't know of any hydrangea that blooms with the trilliums. And the large, exquisitely puckered leaves were unlike any hydrangea leaf I'd ever seen. Turns out it was a viburnum--Viburnum lantanoides--to be precise. This native shrub likes it cool and moist--perfect for northern climates. [...]

I have grown forget-me-nots for many years. I even got them to naturalize a bit in the secret garden at our old house. At our new house, I noticed some forget-me-nots intermixed with hostas growing alongside the garage. The hostas loved it there in spring but looked pretty sad in summer's heat, so I dug [...]

Driving down country roads on the way to town, I noticed what looked like brown fur in many of the shrubs along the road. I finally realized that the "fur" was actually the seedheads of Virgin's bower, Clematis virginiana, which Prairie Moon Nursery fittingly calls "prairie smoke on a rope." Virgin's bower is a native [...]

How many of you have wait-and-see plants in your garden? You know, when you look at a plant in spring and think What the heck is that? Did I plant it, or is it a weed? I guess I'll just wait and see. Last fall, I planted a bunch of small plants in the Deck [...]

Wild parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) lines the ditches of the rural roads I walk and drive on. Its yellow umbels reach peak bloom around the same time as the orange ditch lilies (Hemerocallis fulva). The yellow and orange complement each other nicely, but this is one wildflower you don't want to pick.I first wrote about wild [...]

A brook borders the northern edge of our property, and several clumps of Joe-Pye weed (Eupatorium fistulosum) grow along the banks. I love the silvery mauve blossoms, which are large enough and tall enough to be seen across the chicken yard, a good seventy feet away. Allan Armitage, in his Native Plants for North American [...]