Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Wildflower Wednesday

I had a bit of trouble deciding what plant or plants to post about for Gail's Wildflower Wednesday.

This is the first time I've had a tall thistle.  It is a volunteer, and it came up in a great spot.  It has been fun seeing a variety of insects on the blooms, sometimes quite a few at a time.


Gail's featured plant, Flowering Spurge has a nice long bloom time, and I see very small insects feeding on the blooms.


Salvia reflexa, lambsleaf sage is a native self sowing annual that I do not remember planting, but am glad it is here.  It will kind of be my "feature" plant.  It is in full sun here, but I also have some in partial shade.  It may have originally come up where I garden across the street.  The plants have been coming up for quite a few years.


Another name for it is lanceleaf sage.


 I have several clumps of it in different areas of the yard.  It is a nice filler.  I need to be cutting the spent blooms off of this one.


I have seen butterflies, skippers and different kinds of bees on the tiny blooms.



Since I had trouble deciding, I wanted to include this photo of sweet coneflowers and other native plants.  We have lots of yellow!


I am enjoying the yellow and purple of different kinds of flowers, such as the Helenium autumnale and Liatris aspera.


This skipper is a little larger than most I've been seeing.


Oh, wait, I needed to include Pale Indian Plantain!  This is the second season for this very tall plant, the first of it blooming.  I am tickled with the long bloom time and variety of pollinators it continues to draw.


During the last storm we had, it was knocked over, and I needed to prop it up.  The meadow rue to the left is not as tall as it was last year.


I hope you are enjoying visits from pollinators on your blooms.  The season sure is flying by for me!  I am still busy watching our three year old granddaughter four days a week, and we have one or both grandsons on Saturdays.  We just set a new schedule that will give us the third Saturday of the month off.