There aren’t many garden flowers that say fall in New Hampshire like the chrysanthemum. The trouble is even though they’re sold as “hardy mums” few can survive our kind of winter cold and most will die. This one was given to me by a friend many years ago and despite having no special care whatsoever has survived winters when the temperature fell to 30 and 35 below zero F (-34 to -37 C.) Purple and white seem to be the hardiest of all the chrysanthemums. Frost won’t hurt this one; it will bloom right up until a freeze.
Sweet everlasting’s (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) common name comes from the way it lasts for years after being cut and dried. This example had a fully open flower which is something I don’t see that often. Usually the plant has many buds rather than open flowers. An odd name for this plant is rabbit tobacco, given to it by Native Americans because they noticed that rabbits liked to gather where these plants grew. Because of these gatherings they thought that rabbits must smoke the plant as a way to communicate with the Creator. They apparently decided to try smoking it too because it was and still is used in smoking mixtures by some Native people. I’ve never seen a rabbit near it.
Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata) looks like a fragile flower but it can take quite a lot of frost and the small pea sized blossoms can be seen until late in the season. It gets its common name from its swollen seed pods that are said to look like the tobacco pouches that Native Americans carried. There doesn’t seem to be any records of Native Americans smoking it but it can make you very sick and they used it as an emetic. Burning the dried leaves is said to keep insects away but burning just about anything usually keeps insects away, so I’m not sure what that would prove for the plant.
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) blooms earlier in the season then rests a bit and blooms again in the fall. The plant has more common names than any other that I can think of and one of them, bad man’s plaything, makes me laugh every time I see a yarrow plant. I can’t imagine how it came by such a name but it could have happened thousands of years ago; yarrow is mentioned in the Chinese I Ching, which is said to pre date recorded history, and has also been found in an excavation of a Neanderthal grave site. Yarrow was a valuable healing herb, one of the nine “holy herbs,” and was traded throughout the world since before recorded time, and that is believed to be the reason for the plant being found in nearly every country on earth today. Native Americans used it for everything from snake bites to deodorant.
Yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) is considered an invasive species but I don’t see it that often and I was surprised to see it blooming so late in the year. When the plant is grown under cultivation its flowers are used as cut flowers and are said to be long lasting in a vase. It has been used medicinally in Europe and Asia. It always reminds me of snapdragons.
New England asters (Aster novae-angliae) and other asters are popular with bees right now but something I noticed last year seems to be true this year as well; the bees visit the lighter colored flowers far more than the darker ones. That could explain why I don’t see the darker colored ones that often, but I wonder why bees would prefer one over the other.
This is the darkest colored New England aster I’ve seen this year and though it was blooming profusely there wasn’t a bee on it.
The white heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides) is a plant that is so loaded with small white flowers along its stems that it doesn’t look as if you could fit one more on it. For that reason it has another common name; the many flowered aster. Asters were burned by the Greeks to drive away serpents, and the Romans put wreaths made of aster blossoms on alters to the gods. In this country Native Americans used asters in sweat baths.
Bumblebees preferred the small flowers of the heath aster on this day and the plants were covered with them. They were moving very slowly though, and instead of flying crawled from flower to flower. Our bee season, like our flower season, is coming to an end.
I’ve seen many wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) flowers growing alongside corn fields but I’ve never seen one with such pronounced veins in its petals. Maybe the cold brings them out. Honey bees love these flowers. They can be white, purple, light orange or pale sulfur yellow. Photos I’ve seen of the white version also show pronounced veins in the petals. Wild radish is in the mustard family and is sometimes confused with wild mustard (Brassica kaber,) but that plant doesn’t have hairy stems like wild radish.
I’m not sure what’s going on with dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) but I’ve seen very few of them over the last two seasons. I used to see them virtually everywhere I went but I had to look for several days to find one for this blog last spring. I stumbled onto the one shown here. It seems very strange that they’d suddenly disappear, or could I somehow just not be noticing them? Is anyone else seeing fewer of them, I wonder?
Though phlox seems to me more like a summer than a fall flower many of them will bloom until we see a hard frost. This purplish one was seen in a park so I think it’s a cultivar rather than a native plant, but we do have native purple phlox so I could be wrong. It was a spot of color that grabbed my attention and I was happy to see it, so I thought it needed to have its picture taken.
Since I like the color blue so much it’s hard not to like vetch, even though it is invasive and is probably responsible for more than a few gray hairs on this head. Once it gets in a garden it is close to impossible to eradicate by pulling alone, and I know that because I tried many times in many gardens over the years. It’s especially annoying when it gets into shrubs. I think this example is hairy vetch (Vicia vilosa,) which was originally imported from Europe and Asia to be used as a cover crop and for livestock forage. It’s now found in just about every meadow in New Hampshire.
Though I’ve seen dandelions blooming in a mild January witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is usually our latest blooming flower. Oddly enough the spring blooming witch hazels (Hamamelis vernalis) are among our earliest flowers, so this shrub has both ends of the season covered. Both are called winter bloom because they bloom so close to that season. My father always had a bottle of witch hazel lotion handy, and this plant reminds me of him. Today’s witch hazel lotion recipe might have come down from Native Americans, who used the plant to treat skin irritation in the same way it is used to this day.
I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and insect and bird and beast. I wanted to know where it got its color, where it got its life – but there was no one to tell me. ~George Washington Carver
Thanks for coming by.
It seems a good time of year for the bees near you. Lots of nectar to stock up or fatten up on for the winter ahead. Your bumble bee looks like our carder bumble bees. Amelia
Thank you Amelia. Yes, we’ve had a summer of abundance. I can’t tell one bumblebee from another but they all seem happy.
Agreed on the lack of dandelions. I never cut my grass until absolutely necessary in the spring as my bees love them but the last two years they have definitely been scarce. Strange…
It is strange, Martha. Even stranger is how I can’t find a single word about it in print. Apparently scientists and reporters haven’t noticed that there is a dandelion shortage.
The yellow toadflax is still blooming here and the asters.now you mention it, I don’t think I’ve seen as many dandelions about this year. Perhaps it’s because people like me keep pulling them out of their gardens before they set seed.
I’m not sure what’s going on with dandelions. I can’t find any information about it online.
Heath Aster is one Aster I’ve never tried, but it looks like it is worth trying. I never noticed that bees like the lighter-colored NE asters, but I have noticed that there is quite a bit of variation in color, even in the same plant.
Heath asters don’t seem too fussy about where they grow so they might be a good choice for a garden. They’re shorter than many others though.
For whatever reason bees do seem to prefer the lighter colored flowers. Luckily we have quite a variety of color shades. They do vary greatly.
Beautiful flowers and excellent bee work. We had a huge crop of dandelions early in the season, more than usual I would guess.
Thank you, and thanks for letting me know about your dandelion crop. It’s good to know that they aren’t doing this everywhere.
I see that I wrote this in early May this year: “The verges have been covered with dandelions for weeks. They must enjoy the cool weather.”
Thank you. I’m glad they’re thriving somewhere.
Very interesting post Allen. With regard to the dandelion – I have seen quite a few this year though not as many as last year and the year before. I have included a link which says that a dandelion doesn’t start flowering until its second year which may account for your commentator’s sighting of leaves but no flowers.
http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/plants-fungi/taraxacum-officinale-dandelion
I am full of admiration of that beautiful chrysanthemum!
Thank you Clare. We’ve gone two years here with hardly any at all blooming and they used to be everywhere. Since seeds germinate at different times depending on when the flowers set seeds I would think that the plants would have staggered bloom times. The odds of them all not flowering at the same time would be astronomical, I’d think.
Thanks for the link too!
It does seem very strange. And I always thought dandelions were indestructible!
Me too!
🙂
Very nice photos. I have definitely noticed fewer dandelions this year. I tincture the roots after the first hard frost. I’m hard pressed to find them this year, and do not use chemicals on my lawn.
Thank you Paula. I used to roast and grind the roots to make “coffee.” They were a good substitute but what a lot of work! The dandelions going missing is very strange and more than a bit perplexing. I can’t think of anything but weather that would cause such a thing.
I hope you got my message about the hawthorn haws!
I did get your message, Allen. I decided to buy some freshly dried hawthorn haws from a farm in Vermont to make my tincture. I’ve got enough to last several years!
Roasting and grinding dandelion roots sounds like lots of work. I just came in from a walk through my gardens and found a few large dandelion plants that were hiding under weeds, so I’ll be able to make tincture after all.
That sound much easier than picking haws from the tree.
I’m glad you found some dandelions. I wouldn’t know where to tell you to look for them right now, and that seems a bizarre thing to be saying.
In a way it’s sad that the summer is coming to an end and that it won’t be long until winter arrives, but at least you found some pretty flowers for the season!
I saw fewer dandelions this summer as well, I thought that it was just something around here. I’ve had to go looking for them, which is strange.
Rabbits smoking anything is a funny notion, makes me wonder what the Native Americans were smoking to put that thought into their heads?
If you see two of the same comment (again), sorry, I seem to be having trouble leaving comments here since I upgraded the software on my computer.
Thanks Jerry!
I did get two comments but I just deleted one so it’s no big deal. I got three on the last post and I wondered how you were doing that!
From the comments I’ve seen it seems that dandelions aren’t blooming anywhere except in western Massachusetts. That bothers me enough to get me to try to find the answer why.
Native Americans seem to have smoked just about every kind of plant out there. Maybe something they smoked made them think they were seeing smoking rabbits, I don’t know. Nothing I’ve ever seen a rabbit do has made me think it was smoking!
It’s wonderful to see the flowers now that nearly all are gone here now. Yours bloom much longer!
I’m not sure why but I’ve always thought that the western states were warmer and had flowers blooming longer. I guess I have to re-think that!
That’s pretty true of the west coastal states, but inland we are at higher elevations and much colder.
Interesting. It’s no wonder your winters are legendary.
So you didn’t like my previous comment about Hewes Hlll, so now you’re blocking my modest comment about Yellow Toadflax, or is there some foul up on my part in the posting?
No David I didn’t block your comment. I have a different job now so I don’t work from home anymore, so that means there will be a time lag from when you leave a comment until I can answer it.
And I didn’t mind your comment about Hewes Hill at all.
Dandelion plants are still ever-present in lawns and fields here, but there was far less flowering last spring, I agree. The buttercup flowering (ten days or so after dandelions) was the first time our green vistas turned substantially yellow this year. . . Related note, I have been picking up windfall apples for weeks now, and have NOT been challenged by yellowjackets or bees of any kind until last week. In other words, far fewer bees at work this year, sad to say.
Thank you Richard. I’m going to have to do some hunting and see if I can find any explanation about what’s going on with dandelions. I never thought I’d miss them but I do.
Where I work we have apple trees and nobody eats the apples so I expected it to be yellow jacket heaven but like you I haven’t seen a one. I have seen lots of bees on the asters though. The thought of them disappearing is scary. We’ll all be out there with little paint brushes doing their job if that happens!
Plenty of dandelions here in western MA, esp. in my lawn!
Thank you Eliza, that’s interesting. You’re the first person to say that. Everyone else has said that they’ve seen fewer. My lawn used to be full of them but now I can’t find any, and that’s really strange.
Maybe geo-engineering released a sterile genetic cross to eliminate it? Who knows? I’d believe anything these days. It is in the realm of possibility.
It’s possible I suppose, but not very pleasant to think about. In the end though it might be better than dumping the millions of pounds of herbicides on our lawns each year like we do.
I’d still like to have the choice as I’d never do such a thing because I love dandelions!
Me too! I’ve never minded them in my own yard, but I dug quite a few when I was a gardener.
Same here, I pull them out of my beds, but I give them the lawn and fields. Probably making more work for myself, but the bees love them and the birds eat their seeds. And if things got bad, I could eat their greens! 😉
Some people grow them in beds like a vegetable.
I ate a lot of dandelions when I was a boy. If you get the young leaves in spring they’re pretty good. At least they were when my grandmother made them. They resemble spinach or chard more than anything else.
Yes, best tender and young, like spinach. It gets bitter as it ages. Highly nutritional and full of antioxidants.
LOVE LOVE LOVE your blog. Great photos, great information. You have such an observant eye. Thank you!!!!
You’re welcome and thank you! I don’t think I’m any more observant than anyone else. I just walk a lot slower and look around, that’s all.
While Yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) (also called Butter and Eggs) is, I agree, uncommon here, there is lots of it this year on the embankment of the Route 9 overpass on West St, near Hannafords.
Thanks David! I don’t usually get on or off the highway there so I didn’t know that. I’ll have to go out there this weekend and see them.
Still so many beautiful flowers to be found as fall gets into full swing. Love the bee shot. I, too, have noticed less dandelions, at least in my yard. But weed and feed is probably the answer in my case. A few springs ago, I passed a meadow so full of them, it was like a sea of yellow. I thought it was quite pretty.
Thank you Laura. Judging from the comments everyone is seeing fewer dandelions, even those who don’t use weed and feed. It’s really strange and I wonder what’s going on.
There used to be a field in Swanzey where Market Basket is now that was full of dandelions and violets blooming together each spring and it was stop the car beautiful. That’s a sight I really miss!
More than any other flower the asters seem to really celebrate this time of year. Nice shot of the bee!
Thanks! Yes, fall just wouldn’t be the same without asters. They’re blooming very well here this year.
I have been seeing more yellow toadflax than dandelions this fall. The dandelions are there, I can find the basal leaves in most not-overly-groomed lawns, but it’s rare for me to see one blooming. They did a big bloom in the spring, but less than usual, and this summer seemed less, too. Perhaps our very wet beginning and very dry end of the summer is not what they prefer.
No witch hazel out here, yet. I love the way they unroll with each petal in sort of a squared-off spiral.
Thank you Sara. I can’t imagine what would keep dandelions from blooming unless it was the weather as you say. It’s really odd, that I do know!
I like the petals of witch hazel too. They always remind me of tiny ribbons.
Nice to catch you so early in the morning! I enjoyed the posts about rabbit tobacco and Indian tobacco. Rabbit tobacco apparently was used very widely by many tribes, including smoking the herb (taking a clue from the rabbits!). Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata) was actually smoked – and still is – I do understand that it should be handled carefully, as it does have an alkaloid which can be toxic in high enough quantities, but pleasant (and non-addictive) in moderation. I haven’t been able to find any Lobelia lately around here…
Thanks Rich. I have a new job so my schedule has changed somewhat.
Natives also smoked sweet everlasting, I’ve heard. It’s supposed to be good for treating asthma.
The lobelia inflate is also called “puke weed” and is supposed to cause sickness, but like many things small quantities probably act very differently. I see the plant virtually everywhere I go here, even in my lawn!
I will look harder! Have a great day Allen.
Thanks Rich, I hope you had a good one as well!
Great commentary as well as wonderful photos. Allen. You had me laughing when reading about “bad man’s plaything” and imagining rabbits smoking tobacco together. I also really liked your shot of the amazingly fuzzy bee. It looks like it is wearing a fur coat.
Thanks Mike. We humans have had some strange (and funny) ideas about plants over the centuries. Rabbits smoking tobacco is certainly one of them and I’d love to hear the story behind “bad man’s plaything.”
I don’t know enough about bees to know if they’ve dusted off their fall furs or if they always look that fuzzy, but they were certainly dressed for the cooler weather. Even with the furs though, they’re moving very slowly.
I’ve noticed Bees walking over plants rather than flying on and off, as you say, it is nearly time for the Bumbles to end their season. Interesting observation about the dandelions too, they are an early spring flower here and yes I thought just the same as you that there seemed to be fewer but thought only herbicide could be responsible as the seed last for years and years or just a co-incidence across the atlantic?
Our dandelions also start blooming in early spring but then bloom all summer. Or they did up until a couple of years ago. It’s interesting, but also a little disturbing, to hear that you’re seeing fewer too. Mankind has been trying to get rid of them for many years and I wonder if we’re finally succeeding. I hope not.