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.

July Wildflower Wednesday

I missed posting for Gail's Wildflower Wednesday last month, so am glad to be getting July done, since I am not posting anything else these days.  I just chose one plant this time, what I know as short-toothed mountain mint.  I didn't find it at the Lady Bird Johnson site, but found it at the Missouri Botanical Garden page.  This article says you can make tea with it, as you can with other kinds of mountain mints, and when I did a search, I found other sites that say it, but I need to check with a friend of mine, and will edit this if he lets me know that he found out one should not with this kind.  (Edit:  Gene gave me this:  http://www.motherearthliving.com/Plant-Profile/herb-to-know-mountain-mint, which says not to make tea with this one due to the higher amount of pugelone, an insect repellent that is also in pennyroyal.)

Pychanthemum muticum draws lots of pollinators in.  People tell me what kinds of wasps and bees I share photos of, but I forget what they say.  I am pleased to be able to see them anyway.

This clump used to be in front of the egress window, where it was shaded by an Amsonia, and even though it looked good, it was about half the height and spread it now is.  I was glad to read that it is not aggressive, so if you dig it out, it won't keep going.  I am in the process, though, of giving different kinds of plants more room to spread so that the masses of plants are larger.  That was one of the suggestions when I became a local pollinator habitat.

I think it likes its new spot!  It can handle sun or part shade.

There are usually a number of these black wasps on the blooms.  There are also quite a few small bees of some kind that I have trouble catching with the camera.  There may be an insect of some kind on the upper left.

Isn't that a nice looking plant and bloom?  Blunt mountain mint is another name for it.  It can handle dry to moist conditions.  Do you have a spot for it if you don't already have it?

I hope all is well with my blogging friends.  I have not been keeping up with you, unless you are on Facebook.  Happy gardening!  I am watching our granddaughter who is now three four days a week.  Now that she is not napping some days, I don't get out to the yard as often as I'd like.  I also need to spend less time on Facebook.  Balance is hard to achieve sometimes!  Do you find that?

Wildflower Wednesday, and Yard Update

It seems I have only been posting once a month, for Gail's Wildflower Wednesday.  I decided to include some photos of the yard as well this time. I have lots of blooms that are not native, but am continuing to replace some of them with U.S. natives a bit at a time.  I am not attempting to just have locally native plants, though.  A number of plants that do well here would not be found together in nature.  I am just tickled to have what I do, and to see the insect and bird visitors.  I didn't take these photos at a time when they were feeding, even though I have been seeing bees and butterflies on some of the blooms.  I learned recently that different kinds of flowers release their pollen at different times of the day.  I am not making it out at different times of the day as often as I used to, so maybe the numbers are not as low as I think.

Here is the front yard, where a silver maple tree used to be until hollow branches were found, and it needed to be cut down for safety.  The first wildflower I want to talk about is what appears to be the tallest in this photo, at the back by the bird feeder.

 

It took a few seasons, so I am pleased that the white wild indigo plant has been blooming for a couple or three years now.   I planted a couple more this year, and look forward to them growing large enough to bloom.  I recently looked up information to see what native plants are poisonous, after finding out some are.  I found out the baptisias are, but they are not severely toxic.  Here is some information on that.

 It likes sun, and is in a spot that does not get watered much.

There are a number of baptisia australis in the yard.  They are in sun, and part sun.  These have self sown, and I have been able to share some.  I am seeing a few bees on these.

On the east side of the house is a parent plant and its offspring that I didn't get dug out to move or share.  The shorter plant with pinkish blooms is a spiderwort cultivar.  The chair belonged to some neighbors who recently moved, due to the mother having memory problems.  I don't know where it will end up, but it probably cannot stay on the egress window cover.

Amsonias are also some of my favorite spring bloomers.  I just wish the bloom time was longer.

The previous photo was looking north and west.  This one is looking south, and there are more amsonias and another baptisia.

Aren't they so pretty?

I decided to go on a bit of a yard walk, to show the flower beds, always a work in progress.  The tall plant by the shed is a buttonbush, which has not yet bloomed.  I hope this is the year it does.

The golden alexanders are still blooming.

The bare spot by the bird is where I dug out a catmint last year.  I planted some native seeds I got from Gardening with Nature in Mind's (on Facebook) plant/seed share last fall, but neglected to write down what I planted, and I think whatever little things have come up are weeds.  After this photo was taken, I moved some plants from the yard to fill in the space.

I am relieved the rabbits are not doing as much damage to the plants as usual.  The phlox pilosa plants, PPP to Gail, have been eaten down to the stubs other years, but they are doing quite well this spring.

I am glad to be seeing monarch caterpillars on the various kinds of milkweed.

We started and will end in the front yard.  I trimmed back the golden alexanders because they were flopping due to all of the rain we've been getting.  I also cut down more stems of the cup plant than usual, hoping it will not hang over the sidewalk as much.

I am not making it to visit blogs like I used to.  I hope all is well with you, and you are enjoying time in your gardens.