July's Wildflower Wednesday

I almost forgot the date again.  Each month goes by too quickly for me!  It is sprinkling, so I just took some photos from the front porch.  I've done posts like this before for Gail's Wildflower Wednesday.  There will be no feature plant, but I will try to get many of the plants identified.  Oh, I just got back from Gail's blog to get the link to it, and see she did something a bit different, too.  She posted about not having a lot of sun, and putting natives in pots.

Here is the east flower bed.  The tall plant is a wild senna that is native to the U.S. but not my SE Nebraska.  The pink blooms by the fence are a cultivar of joe pye weed, 'Gateway'.  The white blooms between the joy pye and liatris are a mountain mint of some kind.

The yellow blooms on the left are gray headed coneflowers.  The tall airy blooms are a Thalictrum of some kind.  I have always called them meadow rue, but the blooms look different than the ones I just looked up.  I am not remembering what kind of liatris this is.  The Monarda fistulosa on the right are finished blooming, while the ones across the sidewalk out of view just started blooming a week or so ago.

This is the west front bed where a silver maple tree used to be.  This area doesn't get watered much. When I do water, either from the rain barrel or with a hose, I just get the ones that cannot handle being dry as much as the other plants.  This time of year, a number of plants are finished blooming, while others, such as cup plant are coming into their own.  The close up of the cup plant did not post at first, so I had to go back to get it, and it is toward the end of the post.

The green plant near the milkweeds is sweet black eyed susan.  It will be blooming soon.  You can see lots of coneflowers in the curb area, and some liatrises as well as others not visible in the photo.

The white blooms here are wild quinine.  This wild senna is blooming ahead of the others in the yard.

The plant with the seed heads is giant coneflower, which is not nearly as tall as usual.  I am not remembering what the plant with the flower buds behind the not yet blooming wild senna are.

Here is the close up of the cup plant!  It has had a number of insect visitors, and will continue to.

There is another joe pye plant with the pink blooms in the background.  The orange blooming Tithonias are not wildflowers, but they have had loads of visitors, and when the monarchs come through this fall, they will be attracted to this plant.  All of those blooms are on two different plants that I started from seed indoors before planting time!  The yellow blooms are another cultivar, Rudbeckia laciniata hortensia,  also called golden glow and outhouse plant.  They took over the raised flower bed in front of the house.  There had been some liatris in there with them.  I am probably not going to dig them out, because it could cause more water to get into our basement. 

Our granddaughter will be here soon.  I hope all is well with you and you are enjoying summer.  Happy gardening!

Wildflower Wednesday, 6/27/18

I have probably talked about most of the plants I have for Gail's Wildflower Wednesdays over the years.  Today, I want to talk about Culver's root with a bit of a different slant.  Since I do not have a prairie, but a small corner lot, I usually cut back some plants like asters, Culver's root, monarda, sweet black eyed Susans and others that get tall and bloom later in the season so that they will bush out and not flop later in the season.  I normally take off about 6 to 12 inches. I also deadhead the amsonias and cut back the baptisias after they bloom.  Do you do any cutting back or trimming?

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower site says Culver's root gets 2 to 6 feet tall.  That is quite a range!  It is a plant that prefers to have some moisture.  I have three of them, and they do not get the same amount of water as each other, since one does not get hit by the sprinkler system we use for the little bit of lawn we have.  

I was sick this spring, and it has taken awhile to get my energy back.  I was late getting the plants cut back, and some, I didn't get to.  Since it causes the plants to be a bit shorter, and delays bloom time, I was surprised to see the two plants I trimmed starting to bloom already.

This is the plant across the way from the previous one.

Here is the plant that does not get as much water, and that I didn't get cut back.  It did start blooming earlier than the others, and I tied it up because it was flopping.  It looks like the blooms are going to be larger than the ones just coming on.  I don't think the bloom size is affected on other plants I cut back.  The monarda fistulosa I didn't get cut back has the same sized blooms as when I cut it back.  It is very tall, and I was thinking it may not flop, but the latest rain really caused it to splay out, so it is tied up, too.

I have been seeing a few bees on the blooms.

This is a very tiny bee, about the size of an ant.  At least I think it is a bee.  It was flying.

We had a very late spring, and then it got very hot.  We had some relief in the last week, with over 2 inches of rain!  The heat is coming back this week.  I hope all is well with you, and you are seeing some pollinators on your blooms.

May 2018 Wildflower Wednesday

Spring was late in coming this year, but it looks like summer will be a bit early.  We are having highs in the upper 80s this week! I now have arthritis in my left knee, and am going to physical therapy, thankful they are not telling me to stop gardening.  I have been sick over a week, though, and have not had the energy to garden.  I did go out and take some photos today, and want to get a Wildflower Wednesday post linked up to Gail's blog before the day is over.  Most of the photos did not turn out well, due to the amount of sunlight, but I found some that will be OK.

I am sure I have featured Golden Alexanders for Wildflower Wednesday before.  They sure are easy to grow, and self sow all over the place, so I have lots to share with others in the spring.  I have seen a few bees on them so far, but have not gotten photos of them.  There are other creatures that make use of them as well.  They are also a host plant for black swallowtail caterpillars, and I have been pleased to see some on the plants.

Here is the view from the porch.  Look at all of the yellow!  A variety of kinds of amsonias add blue to the area.

The yellow blooms on the plants along the sidewalk are what I call native coral bells, and Lady Bird Johnson's page call prairie alumroot.   These have been growing here quite a few years, and have done quite well in this dry, sunny area.  All the other yellow blooms are the golden alexanders.

Here is a view from the street, where there is some Monarda bradburiana in front of a volunteer clump of golden alexanders.  This monarda is not native to Nebraska, but it seems to do well in the flower beds.

I normally cut back a number of plants, such as the asters in the spring, so they will be less floppy, but I have not had the energy to do more than what I had done before I got sick, which was just a few.

I am not remembering which Amsonias are which now.  I thought the narrow leaved ones were Amsonia hubrichtii, but when I looked that up, the plants I saw looked different.  I don't know if any of them are Nebraska natives, but they are U.S. natives, and I am glad they get part sun, since that is their preference.  I like all of the blue and yellow.

The last two photos did not load at first, so they are out of order.  this is the front yard and shows a baptisia blooming.  The cool looking plants getting ready to bloom are penstemons of some kind.  I looked up shell leaf and wax leaf, but didn't figure it out.

This is definitely one I didn't plant, but it seems very happy and exuberant here.

The plants that grow around the yard receive different amounts of light and moisture.  When I looked up golden alexanders for the post, I noticed it said the plant likes a moist site.  It seems pretty adaptable in our SE Nebraska yard.  I do not give them special treatment.  I think I do do some deadheading, though, so it won't flop.  Here is what Lady Bird Johnson's page says.

I hope spring is going well for you, and you stay well!  I am going to be so tickled to be able to do my gardening thing!