Wildflower Wednesday

I was going to do an update of our front yard again for Gail's Wildflower Wednesday, but when I looked at my last WW post, the photos looked almost identical, which means a lot of the plants in our yard have a nice long bloom time.  There are also some that were not yet blooming, but are now.  I decided to include a few, and then find some that weren't blooming yet last month.

The wild quinine has had a long bloom time.

These liatrises, which I think are pycnostachya, are almost finished blooming.  I have been deadheading the gray headed coneflowers, and they are sending out new blooms.

You can see where I've cut some off here, and some lovely new blooms.



Even though I've left the seedheads on the purple coneflowers, this plant is sending up some new blooms.

Pitcher sage is one of my favorite flowers.  They will soon be opening up their lovely blue blooms.

I've had this helenium for over ten years.  I'm thinking it may be autumale, which is native to our area.  Can you tell? 

The beauty berries are ripening!

The rigid goldenrods held onto their buds for quite awhile, and I am excited they are finally opening up.

The pollinators are glad, too.

The liatris, I'm pretty sure, aspera, is still showing some color.

There are two wild sennas within 6 feet from each other.  Both were a few inches tall last year, when I planted them.  While this one was blooming away this summer, the other one got taller and wider.  It had had a few blooms early on, but no seed pods like these.  I thought maybe one was a male and the other female plant, since I don't know that much about them, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Now, the other one, which was a give away at a garden tour at Benjamin's place in 2011, is putting on quite a show.  His blog is The Deep Middle.

This cup plant was pretty small when I got it at a plant sale in some folks' yard this spring.  I am a proud mama, but don't plan on letting this self sow as much as it could.

It's another one I've seen a number of pollinators on.



I am pleased the ironweed I transplanted from another part of the yard is doing well.

The taller type of wine cup plants have been blooming all summer.

The Joe Pye weeds are doing well, and still attracting the bees.

This short toothed mountain mint is a different kind than the one in the background in the above photo.

I remembered to go to the vegetable garden to take photos of the brown eyed Susans.  I plan to take some seedheads to the front yard this fall, and let them grow there.  I'll just have to be careful not to let them take over.

The toadflax have been growing in a wash tub for a number of years.  They are too aggressive for the ground here.

I just got this wild ageratum, or blue mist flower this summer.  After finding out it can be a spreader, I decided to plant it in a washtub.  I keep having this feeling like I grew it many years ago, and did some battle with it.  I love the bloom, though, and am hoping it survives winter.  Oh, and I saw a monarch butterfly on it today.

I have to protect the purple prairie clover from the rabbits.

The other butterfly milkweeds are finished blooming, so I am glad this one still has color.

I'd like to find more narrow-leaf ironweed.

The Virginia mountain mint blooms didn't seem to last as long this year.

I have been watering this summer, partly because I have new plants that won't need it as much once they get established.  As the days of no rain continue, and I start to feel guilty, I think of all the critters that benefit from the growth and blooms.  Most of the flowers are doing pretty well.  Here are some wider views.  Not all of them are wildflowers.  You can see Joe Pye weed on the left, and farther down, is the cup plant.

I'm pretty sure this switchgrass is panicum 'Prairie Sky'.  I may have called it 'Northwind' in another post, but I think that is what is next to one of the wild sennas.

I'm glad I planted tithonia, Mexican sunflower, right in front of the porch.  I've really enjoyed seeing the butterflies and bees on it.  There is another one planted on the west edge of the yard.

Here's a wider view with one of the wild sennas, with the switchgrass, 'Northwind' behind it.

I want to close with a word of caution to those who have their blogs on Blogspot.  For some reason, I was signed out today, and when I signed in, I got to a page that talked about the new look of Blogger.  I didn't know if this was a more recent new look than the last one I knew of.  I decided to look at my blog through a new format to see what it looked like.  I wasn't even sure what it was.  In the past, when you pushed "apply to blog" you weren't really changing it until you also saved it.  Well, in this case, it changed without that next step.  I didn't like it enough to want to change, so I had to go back and try to figure out how I had it before.  I couldn't remember which template I had used, so I had to start over.  I have been tweaking it this evening, but am not satisfied, so I will be doing more messing with it.  I figured out that you now click on the picture of the template to just have a look at your blog in it.  That's a major change.  It would have been nice if Blogger would have cautioned people before experimenting.

I hope you and your gardens are thriving.

My Collection of Liatris, Trying to Remember Which is Which

Liatris is one of my favorite flowers.  I have planted a number of them, and the tags don't end up staying next to them, so I forget which are which.  I decided to take some photos, and then see if we can figure it out. 

I have 5 of my garden books opened to liatris, and think I have the first one figured out.  This looks like liatris aspera, also called button snakeroot, or rough blazing star.  Oh, and I just learned something.  This used to be called liatris scariosa.  (I have three photos of this one.)

Can you see the bee?  

You can see why "button" is in one of the names for it.

I think these tall, floppy ones are liatris pycnostachya, thick-spike gayfeather.  The blooms are on more of the stalks on these than the ones I saw in my books and online, but I am thinking that is one of the kinds I bought.  They are much thicker than the other liatrises.

The bees like them, too.

Now, there was a tag next to this one, but sometimes a tag will come out from somewhere, and I guess which plant it was.  This one said it's liatris punctata.  I have several of those, and the rabbits have been munching on them.

This one's tag said the same thing, though, and these don't look alike, but I've had a basket over this one so the rabbits couldn't get to it.

This one's tag also said punctata.  I just hope they grow taller and bloom next year.

I wonder if this is another aspera.

They sure like to hold onto their buds awhile!

A few of the liatrises were totally lying on the ground until I propped them up.  I wonder if this is also punctata. 

 

 Another name for it is dotted gayfeather.

 

This one is a bit taller than the previous one, but I think it may also be punctata.

I like it.

The bees like it, too!

These are the first liatrises that I grew, 'Kobold'.  Someone told me the name of the plant I admired in a church bed, and when I got this, I didn't realize there were so many native ones.  I guess I wasn't looking for native plants so much at the time, either.  These are finished blooming already.

They have self sown around, and while I still like them, I think I am going to cut them down before fall, to avoid more coming up.  I am wondering if I should even grow them if I don't want the native ones to cross with them, though.  I am not ready to pull them out just yet, but it's something I need to think about.

I've had these in the curb area in front of the vegetable garden a number of years.  I'm pretty sure they are punctata.

I scrolled back to the others I thought were the same, but couldn't tell.  These have been here longer, and are in full sun.  They are not getting nearly as much water as the ones in the front.

This is a white blooming one I found somewhere, but as you can see, the rabbits have been eating this one down.

If you recognize what these are, please let me know. 

Some Kind of Rabbitbrush

Larry and I went to Omaha the other day, and only had time to go to a couple nurseries.  I was pleased to find a nice sized pot of prairie dropseed grass that I fought hard to split into two to plant.  I also got a blooming purple prairie clover, which I promptly put a cage around so the rabbits couldn't feast on it.  There were a couple other other plants I bought that I wasn't as sure about.  My internet wasn't working, so I couldn't look one of them up.  The other, the young man thought was native, but he wasn't sure.

It's interesting how plants can have different names, but it can also be confusing.  Then, there can be different plants that have the same name, which caused me to buy the plant the young man and I thought was native to our area, but I found out is not even native to the U.S.  And, we know that there can be different varieties of plants, as well.

The tag on this plant said the common name is dwarf blue rabbitbrush.  The top part was broken, so not all of the letters of its scientific name were showing.  There were not very many hits when I did a search on it.  I found some information that led me to think this was chrysanthemum nauceosus.  I left a comment on a site about low water needs landscaping, where it was listed, asking if anyone knew the native range.  There was a link to this on Facebook, so two people I know, Gail, and Bertine, who is from Lincoln, gave me information that helped on my quest to figure out what this plant is.

Gail gave me this link, asking me if I thought this was the plant I got.  Here, it was called Ericameria nauseosa, rubber rabbitbrush.  I couldn't tell from the photo, and was confused, because both names were different for it.  Looking at the tag again, I realized that there was the blue bird symbol, which told me it originally came from Bluebird Nursery, which is in Clarkson, Nebraska.  I called them, and explained about the tag, asking if they could tell me whether it is native to Nebraska.  I was impressed that the woman who answered the phone was able to get the information for me.  Guess what, Gail?  You were right!  It is Ericameria nauseosa, and I just noticed the site said it is known by different names in different areas, and can become "weedy or invasive".

Bertine, this site says "nauseosa" refers to the smell given off when the leaves or flowers are crushed.  I didn't think to check that out, though.

Isn't this a cute little plant?  This is the one the nice young man who I enjoyed visiting with about birds and butterflies thought was native.

After going on some garden tours this spring, I was thinking I'd like to find a spot for St. John's Wort.  When I saw this, I knew it wasn't the bush I'd seen, but I was pleased to see the butterfly symbol on it, so I thought I'd take a chance.  I figured I'd find somewhere else for it besides the front yard if it wasn't.

Today, I figured out where to put these two plants.  I have a small area in front of the vegetable garden that does not get as much water as the other beds. It normally looks better than it does now, due to the heat and lack of rain, but I thought I'd show the area a bit since I haven't in awhile.  I have had some holes that needed filling, so I'm glad I thought to put them there.  There are mostly white or yellow blooming flowers, and also plants with foliage with other colors besides plain green, and both of these fit into that category.

I need to deadhead the veronicas.  The bushy blooms in front of it are a perennial statice, or limonium, I'm forgetting the name of.  The boltonia is flopping over.  The rabbits have been eating the white blooming liatris in this bed.

 I put the St. John's Wort on the other end of the bed.  That's another statice.  I originally planted these to dry the flowers, but they look good so long on the plant, I tend to just leave them there.  The rue in this area didn't do as well this year.  I want to plant some more for the swallowtail caterpillars to eat.

It's planted near the metal sunflower, which I recently got at a garage sale.  The very wilted plant is a phlox.  I should probably cut it back.  The reddish leaved plant is a Chocolate Joe Pye Weed.  Oh, and there are three large type sedums, similar to Autumn Joy that I moved from the curb area this spring.  They didn't seem to mind, and are doing quite well.

Have you ever been confused about names of plants?  I guess there is always something to learn when we garden.  I have pretty much run out of local places to find some of the native plants I don't have yet, and want to find a couple kinds of seeds.  Sometimes when I talk about finding plants that are native to Nebraska, Larry points out to me that I am not native.  Well, I guess he's right about that.  Also, if one is really wanting to be pure, I've read they should find plants and seeds that were actually grown from within a small range of where one has their garden.  I'm sure a number of the "native" plants I am growing do not naturally grow in the same areas as each other, either.  I have told myself I just need to enjoy what little yard space we have, and not be too obsessed with what I plant in it.  We have a nice assortment of plants that are beneficial to different kinds of butterflies, bees, wasps, birds and other critters, and there is no way I will ever have a real meadow or prairie.  I'm just glad our neighbors don't complain about it.

I go back to work a week from tomorrow. I worked summer school, and didn't get as much done as I wanted to this summer, but since it's so hot, and I don't feel like being out in this, I am ready to go back to that routine.  There was a chance I was going to work fewer hours, but my boss and I decided to keep my 7 hour day.  I do hope to have this part of the yard cleaned up by then, though.  The veronicas will most likely bloom again.

Have a great weekend!  It sounds like we are to go back to some highs in the 80s for a few days instead of the upper 90s and some 100s.