Wildflower Wednesday in September

Each month on the last Wednesday Gail at Clay and Limestone hosts Wildflower Wednesday where bloggers can display and share their wildflower photos.  Here's a little bit of the wildness that is my garden!

Is there a wildflower more associated with fall than goldenrod?

Scarlet sage (Salvia coccinea) is a self sowing annual here in my garden. Its beautiful scarlet red flowers are an awesome treat for hummingbirds who are sampling all they can of my garden before they journey south.

This seed sown offspring of an 'Oranges and Lemons' gaillardia is one of my favorite flowers. It doesn't stop blooming all season.  The gaillardia's red and yellow coloring is an attraction for all kinds of pollinators including those little metallic colored bees hanging out in the photo!

While it isn't really flowering at the moment the purple berries of this beautyberry surely are worth a mention!  It flowers in the late spring and summer with tons of little white blooms which produce the copious clusters of purple berries all over its branches.  

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The White Pathway

In our yard exist many corners that have not yet been cultivated. Most of these spots may never receive more than a cursory attempt at management. While I was mowing today I drove through one such area that completely caught me off guard. Along our back property line is an old fence that I'm sure was there before our subdivision became what it is today and was probably used to keep cattle contained. The back area of our yard, which continues up a hillside and along the fence, was completely left alone and naturalized for several years. Last fall I began to make pathways through the brushy hillside so that we could move around our property. The pathways aren't anything spectacular, just simple cut grass areas through the brush, but enable us to use a little bit more of our yard.

It was this seldom cared for pathway tucked away in the back of the yard that struck me as being particularly special. As I drove the mower through the pathway the sun shone down in such a way to illuminate all the white wildflowers that have grown on either side of the path. The filtered sunlight and dappled shade highlighted the area in such a way that I was forced to immediately drive my mower back to the garage and retrieve my camera. I was struck by the well placed, natural beauty of the scene. Has a scene from your garden ever prompted you to do the same?

Planting en mass is a popular technique that works very well in places but I never would have though to plant so much white in one area. It's clear that a mass of white flowers might be a nice treatment for certain areas particularly those in full to part shade. Mother nature planted this area with two white blooming wildflowers:

Symphyotrichum ericoides var. ericoides

or White Heath Aster

  

Heath Aster has a wide distribution across the states and is widely considered a weed but looks pretty nice in the right setting. Each year they will produce thousands of seeds and have almost completely covered our hillside.

Ageratina altissima (Eupatorium rugosum)

or White Snakeroot

Here the white snakeroot is mixed in the shade with the heath aster. Snakeroot is blooming all along our back property line where it receives mostly shade. It's white flowers brighten up the shade and seem to make those spots glow with a light of their own. There is some interesting information at Wikipedia concerning it's poisonous nature.

Together these two naturally occurring wildflowers have created a white pathway for fall.  Since I have other areas to attend to and other projects in need of attention I'm content to let the white pathway stand as it is. Maybe one day I'll add a little something to this area but for now I'll leave it to Mother Nature to design!

Wildflowers Blooming in September

Welcome to my bone dry September garden for Wildflower Wednesday! We have an assortment of fall blooming flower pictures to share. You really don't need a reason other than their beauty to plant wildflowers but the fact that so many of them require little to no care during our current weather conditions is a great bonus. To have something that looks good in drought is absolutely necessary here in TN!

In the front garden: Gaillardia.

This gaillardia is a self sown offspring of my 'Oranges and Lemons' gaillardia.

The flowers appear red and yellow and continue blooming even without dead heading although definitely at a reduced rate.

The Self Sowing Garden:

White Snakeroot - a true wildflower that happens to thrive all around us. It's billowy white flowers blend nicely with others. I'll be pulling these plants soon after the blooms have faded to prevent them form taking over the garden. In this photo it mixes well with the celosia - which is also quickly taking over!

Another photo from the self sowing garden reveals some salvia, zinnia, and cosmos that decided it wasn't going to bloom this year. While these aren't necessarily native they sure perform like the natives - almost no care required.

In the Wild Garden (my term for the untamed areas around the yard)

Solidago or Goldenrod (no sneezing required). The truth behind the old myth that goldenrod causes hay fever is much more known today than it was a few years ago. Goldenrod is insect pollinated which means unless an insect climbs into your nostrils and delivers the pollen directly to your sinuses you aren't likely to sneeze because of goldenrod. Although the insect itself might cause more of the nasal irritation than the pollen. ;)

Perennial mist flower can be found just outside the vegetable garden. It popped up last year and I liked it so I left it!

Salvia coccinea is blooming in several places. This one is pink in color but red has also appeared from the same packet of seed. I made sure to collect some of the red earlier in the summer. I'll collect some of the pink soon as well.

The Garden Shed Garden:

Outside of my garden shed (that is still waiting for painting) is a large Salvia farinacea. A very cool blue salvia that I grew from seed then propagated from a cutting and planted here. I'll take some cuttings soon to ensure it ends up again in my 2011 garden.

If we stand back just a little you will see much more of the snakeroot. It's an attractive plant this time of year but really doesn't do much the rest of the growing season. Like most white flowers it seems to work better with other colorful plantings nearby. Although there is something to be said for an all white display!

Go visit Gail for more Wildflower Wednesday!

GBBD - Colors of a September Garden

Welcome to my Garden Blogger's Bloom Day Post for September 2008. On the 15th of each month Carol at May Dreams Gardens encourages her fellow garden bloggers to show what's blooming in their garden. Please stop by her site to see what else is blooming around the blogosphere!

We've made it through August and survived with the minuscule amounts of rain that August usually provides. Now that rains have resumed on a more frequent but still irregular basis quite a few things are blooming. Here's a look at the herb garden and the basil going to seed. I've periodically pinched off the blooms but inevitably the determination of mother nature wins.



Near the herb garden is the Caryopteris x clandonensis. It's the 'Longwood Blue' variety which are still small but will eventually grow to be rounded 3'-4' shrubs full of blue blossoms. Blue Mist shrub is a great perennial for attracting pollinators to the garden!


In the front garden you'll find the 'Autumn Joy' sedum peaking from behind a red chrysanthemum. The bees seem to really enjoy the 'Autumn Joy' sedum! In the foreground you can see the foliage of a hollyhock I started from seed this year. Hopefully next year it will shoot up some blooms.


The next small collection of photographs comes from out 'Oranges and Lemons' Gaillardia. It's been a powerhouse bloomer this summer. Even though a significant number of blooms have gone to seed it is still producing multiple blooms to enjoy. It's a butterfly magnet, not bad for a former discount plant!



Now for a look at the wilder side of our garden. On our northern edge of the property is a small naturalized area with mostly grasses. Within those grasses you can find a few blooming wildflowers. The goldenrod is blooming even stronger this week than last!


Other plants blooming but not pictured in this post: Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna', Salvia longispicata x farinacea 'Mystic Spires', Impatiens, Coleus, Hostas, Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), Chrysanthemums (red and yellow), Morning glory, Asters, and Zinnias.

Goldenrod (Solidago)

It's a sure sign of fall when the goldenrod stands tall! These tall golden yellow plumes rise above most of the native grasses in our naturalized side yard. Unfortunately for this beautiful perennial flower it is commonly mistaken for a more insidious vegetative villain, ragweed. Ragweed is the plant responsible for all those hay fever allergy problems people experience in the fall. This is probably because ragweed and goldenrod both flower at the same time. The pollen in these perennial plants is very heavy, perfect for bees and pollinators to carry from plant to plant but not very good for the wind to disperse. Ragweed pollen floats easily on the wind. Ragweed's flowers are not nearly as noticeable as goldenrod's and many people a fooled into thinking that our yellow flowering friend is the culprit.



Acceptance of this fact is coming around now and fewer people practice pollinating prejudice against our wonderful wildflower. In fact you can purchace specially bred varieties of Solidago in stores near you. Most likely it will be identified as Solidago in stores since many people erroneously presume that allergies are caused by goldenrod.



I purchased a smaller dwarf variety a couple weeks ago on the discount racks. I probably wouldn't have bought it if it hadn't been a dwarf. I've always thought goldenrod was beautiful to look at. The golden yellow flower stalks reach for the sky like an echo of the summer sun passing along. Of course my wife told me I bought a weed!



Our wild solidago is just now starting to bloom. It's a nice show to watch under the September sun.


Although the blooms are slightly fewer it is doing very well in the shady areas surrounding our yard.


It's a common wildflower but has such a flourish of blooms that everyone should appreciate it as a sign of summer's ending in a flourish of gold!

A Mix of Natives for Wildflower Wednesday

Over at Clay and Limestone Gail celebrates the diversity of native plants with Wildflower Wednesday so I thought I would join in this week to share a few of the native plants I've run across over the past week. 

Let's start with a shrub!  This is what I believe to be a gray dogwood (Cornus racemosa).  It has white clusters of flowers that eventually change into these nearly white berries.  As you can see someone has snatched a few berries - must have been the birds!

Rudbeckia is a favorite of many gardeners for some good reasons: low maintenance, it looks great, feeds the birds, makes pollinators happy, and has a rather cheerful general disposition in the garden!  In this picture my rudbeckia is intertwined with a lilac verbena.  Verbena is another great plant for the pollinators.

I spotted this tall white wildflower over the weekend.  I think it may be a type of eupatorium but that's just a guess.  Maybe you can identify it?

The purple coneflowers look great this year! I think I have a few of these in every garden.  I gather the seed heads in the fall and sprinkle them where I want new plants. 

The Tennessee coneflower is flowering nicely too.  It will hybridize very easily with other coneflowers so we have it separated from its cousins.

This 'Arizona Sun' Gaillardia that I shared yesterday is another native plant well worth planting in the garden. 

Stop over and visit Gail for Wildflower Wednesday!

Botanical Pictures from a Zoo (Columbus)

Last week our family went for a vacation. The primary goal of this vacation was to let our oldest daughter see her favorite animal (the cheetah) in person. My wife did some research into various zoos and my mom suggested the Columbus Zoo in Ohio based on a Jack Hanna segment she saw on TV. We ended up scheduling two days at the zoo and one day at a related safari style park called The Wilds. The zoo was fantastic. We only planned for 2 days at the zoo itself but probably could have spent an additional 2 days wandering around. The Columbus zoo even has water park available with rides. The Wilds was very neat and I highly recommend it. We took an open air tour bus around the park and saw quite a few threatened herd animals that are being preserved through their breeding programs. Rhinos, bison, antelope, deer,and wild horses were just a few of the many creatures to see at The Wilds.

Zoos tend to have very interesting botanical elements. Often they try to mimic the natural environment of the animals but they also tend to incorporate a lot of native plants around the zoo. I often end up watching for interesting plants and their arrangements more so than the animals! The Wilds also has a butterfly garden project which covers several acres of land across the road from the park. The butterfly garden has all kinds of native plants including echinacea, monarda, milkweed, coreopsis, gaillardia, and many others.

Here are a few more photos from our visit to the Columbus Zoo and the Wilds!

Above is a bed of zinnias and below petunias with salvia.

Buck-eye in bloom, we were in the Buck-eye state!

Milkweed

 

Soon to be blooming coreopsis.

Echinacea purpurea (a plant every garden should have!)