Category: wildflowers

Yep, it’s winter

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It’s cold. After a warm November that lulled me into laziness. I didn’t get everything done in the garden. So some things froze that aren’t supposed to. Granted, I don’t really have the infrastructure needed to keep greens in the main garden. That would probably be cold frames. The row cover is not adequate. That’s the way it goes.

Frozen mizuna, maybe still edible?
Frozen leeks
Frozen broccoli rabe
Kale patch. I’ve seen this start to grow and then go to seed in the spring, so I had planned to leave this. I did harvest the chard next to it, and we’re still eating it.

The dried heads of various flowers are interesting this time of year. A variety of browns and all different textures. I don’t cut them back until spring so they can provide cover or whatever for creatures that might depend on them.

Tansy
Goldenrod
Autumn Joy sedum
Spirea – meadowsweet (I think)
Monarda fistulosa

And I spotted these sweet little cups when cutting back fronds in the asparagus bed. They are growing on bits of straw. The largest is maybe 1/4 inch wide.

Bird’s nest fungus?

Some wildflowers

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The lupine is usually not that noticeable until it flowers. This year, I’m paying attention to its early phases. Great big clumps of leaves! And some violets brightening the yard, along with many dandelions and some of that delicate white wildflower – I’ll have to look it up.

Update: bluets, Quaker ladies, Houstonia serpyllifolia

Lupine

Wildflower planting

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I potted up six pots of native wildflower seeds and one pot of red shiso this morning in warm sunshine. The wildflower seeds are from the Wild Seed Project, purchased at the Common Ground Fair. The red shiso failed to grow successfully for me despite two tries following the directions to freeze and thaw successively. So I’m trying a natural approach by leaving it out for the winter.

Planting the wildflower seeds was fun. First of all I didn’t have to rummage around in the shed for pots and dirt. Exactly the right number of pots were available right out front after I eliminated an excess of frozen angel wing begonias that I’d started last year. Secondly, some of those seed packets held a very fine flattened lacey fluff, just as you’d expect from wild flowers. I carefully removed the fluff and spread it out over the dirt. Other seeds were extremely tiny. The instructions say no need to try to space them at this point — really, seeds distributed naturally are thickly spaced! It felt really nice to be trying to follow natural processes. Now these pots go in a somewhat protected area to overwinter. While I dream of flowering meadows of native plants…

Native seeds planted:

  • Coastal joe pye weed
  • Blue vervain
  • New England aster
  • Boneset
  • Cardinal flower
  • Blue lobelia

Instructions and photos: https://wildseedproject.net/how-to-grow-natives-from-seed/

Wildflowers lately

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St. John’s wort, hypericum perforatum, growing in the fruit yard on its own

White meadowsweet, spiraea Alba, blooming profusely along local roadsides

Elderberry, growing like weeds in the fruit yard Update: correction on this! I found out this is bristly sarsparilla, aralia hispida.

Fireweed, a few spires growing in the orchard

Flower walking

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Lilacs are blooming everywhere, and while I’ve always loved lilac, they seem too civilized, predictable, tame. Here’s some more interesting flowers that caught my eye lately.

I’m very happy to have this photo of blue-eyed grass. I spotted it next to a rock in the herb border. The blue is so beautiful and the stems are so oddly flat. The next day the blooms were dried up.

This is blooming all along the roadsides. My PlantSnap app identifies it as American beech. But I’m skeptical about that. Will keep an eye on it.

Finally the lovely iris blooming in the field.