Late September Flowers

What I call the park asters seem to have had trouble getting going again this year and are quite late, or maybe I’m just impatient. These plants get about a foot and a half tall but are large and mounded and once they get going are covered with blossoms. They’re very pretty and I show them in these flower posts so you can see what a long bloom time they have. They’ll also take a hard frost and keep blooming. I’m sure they could be found in a garden center but I don’t know their name.

Bees and butterflies love them. These plants are often covered with both.

Bumblebees are still very active and I see them all over the flowers you’ll see in this post. This one was loving this sunflower.

I took this shot because I love the colors of goldenrod and purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) together. This particular loosestrife was very dark.

And this purple loosestrife, growing just a few feet from the one in the previous photo, was much lighter in color.

The small but abundant blooms of panicled aster (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum) can be found everywhere I go right now. They’re maybe half to a third the size of a New England aster.

And blue wood asters (Symphyotrichum cordifolium) are even smaller. These were a very pale blue, almost white.

If, before you had indoor plumbing, you wanted to hide the outhouse this is often what you would use for a screen, at least in summer. And that’s how this particular helianthus species got the name of “outhouse daisy.” Another name is the Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) but since it isn’t an artichoke and it has nothing to do with Jerusalem, that name makes little sense. Jerusalem artichokes were cultivated by Native Americans for thousands of years for their tuberous roots, which they cooked and ate much like we do potatoes. They are said to be starchy with a nutty flavor and they were immediately adopted by the early settlers. The tubers have fewer calories than potatoes and the plant’s carbohydrates and sugars can be assimilated by the digestive tract without insulin. This makes them an excellent choice for diabetics. You’d better have plenty of space though. This one had to have been 7 feet tall.

Whatever name you choose to use for it, this is a beautiful late summer / early spring flower.

These New England asters (Symphyotrichum puniceum) surprised me by growing almost in the water at the edge of a pond. Those are cattails behind them. I don’t think of them as water lovers but they do tend to grow in ditches and other places that stay moist.

I was surprised to see the only marshmallow (Althaea officinalis) plant I know of still blooming, but then why not? It’s in the same family as rose of Sharon, another late summer / early fall bloomer. Its flowers are about the diameter of a quarter, or 3/4 of an inch.

Many plants will have a big initial spring or early summer bloom, then they rest and will bloom sporadically again in the fall. Dandelions do it and that’s what I thought tradescantia did as well until I started watching this particular plant, which has bloomed all summer long. Is it all the rain that made it do so, I wonder?

I saw a bee balm I didn’t recognize in a local park. It had a tag that read Monarda Sugar Buzz “Blue Moon.” My color finding software sees “plum” and “medium purple” but for what it’s worth, it looked blue to me. It couldn’t have been more than a foot tall.

Here in the Northeastern U.S. we are big on garden chrysanthemums in the fall and I wonder if people in other countries love them as much as we do. Thought of as a late summer / fall plant, many thousands of them are sold each year and you see them everywhere. Though they are native to Asia and northeastern Europe I never hear much about them being grown in other countries.

Fall mums come in many colors including red. My color finding software tells me this is “Indian red.” Though they are sold as “hardy mums” they are not truly hardy and most of them die in winter, but purple and white ones will often make it through until the following year. Chrysanthemums were first cultivated in China as early as the 15th century, where its boiled roots were used to treat headaches and its sprouts and petals were eaten in salads.

Spotted Deadnettle (Lamium maculatum) is another “spring plant” that has bloomed all year long. I like its little orchid like flowers. Dead nettles are native to Europe and Asia, but though they do spread some they don’t seem to be invasive here. The name dead nettle comes from their not being able sting like a true nettle, which they aren’t related to.

I can’t say that this is the last rose of summer but since we’re past our average first frost date of September 25th, it could be.

Here is another bumblebee on a scabiosa blossom.

Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) was losing its tiny flowers one by one. It seems odd that though this plant is supposed to be a bee and butterfly magnet I’ve never seen a single insect on it. Though they fly all around it and are on surrounding plants they don’t touch it.

The pee gee hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata) is a “panicled” hydrangea, meanings its flower heads are cone shaped rather than round. These plants grow into large shrubs sometimes reaching 10-20 feet tall and nearly as wide. Though originally introduced from Japan in 1862 this plant is thought to be native by many and is a much-loved, old-fashioned favorite. What I like most about this hydrangea is how the flower heads turn a soft pink in the fall. When they’re cut and dried, they’ll hold their color for quite a long time.

This hydrangea is also a panicled variety according to Google lens, but the shape is very different from the example we just saw so I looked it up online. Sure enough there is a panicled hydrangea variety called Quick Fire which was released by Proven Winners, with a photo that looks just like this one. It is said to open white and quickly turn pink. I do like the color but it looked more like a lace cap hydrangea to me.

I saw a huge drift of wildflowers at a local pond recently. They went on like this for many yards.

New Englanders know what witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) blossoming means; winter can’t be far off. Though it usually blooms in cool weather these native plants bloomed on a warm day. I’ve seen them bloom on a warm day in January before but not in September. These flowers have a very subtle fragrance I’ve heard described as being like “fresh clean laundry just taken down from the line.” I haven’t taken much laundry down from clotheslines so I can’t say one way or the other, but it is a pleasant, clean scent. Native Americans steamed witch hazel twigs over hot stones in sweat lodges to sooth aching muscles, and my father always had a bottle of witch hazel lotion in the house.

You can experience the beauty of nature only when you sit with it, observe it, breathe it and talk to it. ~Sanchita Pandey

Thanks for coming by.

Read Full Post »

Early November Flowers

The record breaking warmth of October continued into the first week of November and that means, for the first time in nearly 8 years of this blog, that I can use “Early November Flowers” for the title. But by the second week of the month it was back to reality and as I write this on the 11th we saw record breaking cold temperatures this morning. Instead of flowers I was photographing ice and snow, so there’s a good chance that you won’t find another rose like this one here until next summer. After record warmth for the last three months and now record cold, it seems as if the weather doesn’t know if it’s coming or going.

At this time of year any flower is welcome. If it were a normal year asters and just about every other flower would be long finished blooming by now, but I found several examples of this aster growing in a group. The roadside grasses had been mowed all around them but they were left untouched.

I’m not sure which aster the small blue ones in the roadside colony were, but it was nice to see them. They might have been the sky blue aster (Symphyotrichum oolentangiense.) The flowers were about a half inch across and the plant about two feet tall.

Daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus) has a very long blooming period. I see them in early June blooming profusely and then sporadically through the following months, but I never expected to see them in November.

I’ve noticed that when it gets cold the small, normally white daisy fleabane blossoms take on a hint of purple. I’ve seen other white flowers do the same, so it isn’t unusual.  Many white chrysanthemums for example will turn purple when it gets cold. Fleabanes get their name from the way the dried plants repel fleas.

I knew knapweed (Centaurea jacea) was a tough plant but I was a little surprised to see it still blooming. Many of the plants in the colony I visit are simply exhausted I think, and have stopped blooming. Knapweed is very invasive in some areas but we don’t seem to have much of a problem with it here.

I’ve seen dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) bloom in January but that was a winter when we saw extended 55-65 degree temperatures in that month. It’s still a bit startling to see them so late, but I’m always happy when I do.

Until they started bothering me by reminding me of fall in June when they start blooming, I never paid a lot of attention to black eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta.) They were a flower that I enjoyed seeing along with all of the other summer flowers and that was all, but now I know what a tough plant this is because I saw this very same plant still blooming today after a freezing cold night of 7 only degrees F. There aren’t many of our flowering plants that could take that kind of cold and I never knew this one could until today.

Chrysanthemums are plants that I would expect to be able to withstand some cold but I doubt even they could stand 7 degrees. I saw these blooming when it was a relatively balmy 50 degrees.

There were hoverflies all over the mums, and I was as surprised to see them as I was the flowers. They were moving over the flowers very slowly, but they were also flying.

Several of what I think were hairy white asters (Symphyotrichum pilosum) grew on a roadside and still blossomed heavily. One of the complaints that I used to hear about asters in the garden was their short bloom time and that might be true for cultivated varieties, but our native plants seem to go on and on.

Hairy white asters get their name from their hairy stems and leaves. The pilosum part of the scientific name comes from the Latin pilus, which means hair. They are also called old field and frost asters. They like to grow in weedy, gravelly waste areas like roadsides. As is true with many asters the white ray flowers look like they were glued on by a chubby fisted toddler with no regard for symmetry.

The monkshood (Aconitum napellus) in a local children’s garden still stood tall, even though all of the other plants had been cut down. This could be because the gardener knew of the plant’s extreme toxicity. People have died from the sap being absorbed through their skin so this is a very dangerous plant indeed, and though I have touched it several times I would never cut it or pick it without good stout gloves on. Another name for it is winter aconite, so it wasn’t a surprise to see it still blooming.

Though many goldenrods went to seed a month or more ago you can still spot them blooming here and there, and this one was still going strong. I think it might be tall goldenrod (Solidago canadensis,) but goldenrods are tough to identify correctly. In any event it was quite tall and branched at the top of the plant.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) flower heads have gotten smaller and smaller into fall, and this one was no bigger than a hen’s egg. Man’s relationship with this plant goes back thousands of years and predates recorded history. It has been found in Neanderthal graves and is mentioned in the Chinese I Ching. It is one of the nine “holy herbs” and was traded throughout the world, and that is thought to be the reason it is found in nearly every country on earth today. It has more common names than any other plant I know of.

It’s hard to find an open blossom on sweet everlasting (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) but they still smell faintly like maple syrup, even when closed. Native Americans added this plant to the smoking mixture they used to communicate with the Creator. It was and is also used medicinally by herbalists to treat asthma and other breathing difficulties.

I’ve had a lot of trouble finding witch hazel flowers (Hamamelis virginiana) this year but then on the coldest day so far; a blustery 15 degree wind chill day, there was a plant loaded with blossoms. Now I wonder if the cold is what actually makes them bloom. They are called winter bloom after all. There is little that is more cheering than finding these fragrant yellow blossoms on a warm January day.

Witch hazel blossoms are pollinated by owlet moths, which are active in winter and are called winter moths, but this year the moths may have help from several other insects I’ve seen still flying. It wasn’t a week ago that I was still seeing dragonflies.

He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul.  ~Celia Thaxter

Thanks for coming by.

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Late September Flowers

Though this pond side view looks like we still have plenty of flowers blooming here in New Hampshire, they are getting harder to find now that we’ve gone into fall. In this view the off white flowers are boneset, nearly gone by, so the only flowers truly blooming are purple asters and goldenrod. There are still other flowers still blooming out there but at this time of year you have to search to find them.

I found a huge mounded colony of this white aster in an old field. Asters can be very hard to identify but I think it might be the small white American aster (Symphyotrichum racemosum) because of the way its lance shaped leaves are sessile on the stem. In this case sessile means leaves without a stalk (petiole.)

At about a half inch across the flowers on the small white American aster aren’t as small as some of the other white asters. For an aster the petals are arranged very symmetrically. There is a similar aster called bushy American aster that has blue flowers.

Pretty little blue toadflax (Nuttallanthus canadensis) must be one of the longest blooming wildflowers we have here. It usually starts blooming in May and I’m still seeing it in quite large numbers here in what is almost October. You can’t ask more from a flower than that. I love the shade of blue that it wears.

Another of my favorite shades of blue is found on bottle gentians (Gentiana linearis.) My color finding software sees both blue and purple in these blooms but colorblindness turns them all blue for me. I walked along the Ashuelot River to the spot where they grow and, though I thought they were finished for this year, there were one or two still holding onto their color. When they start to go by they turn very dark blue and then a kind of purple.

I took this photo of a bottle gentian so those of you who have never seen one would know what to look for. The flowers and growth habit look much like those on a narrow leaved gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) but that plant has narrower leaves.

Black eyed Susans are another flower with a long bloom time but they’re getting sparse now and you have to search to find them in this area. Though they start blooming in June I always think of them as a fall flower, so when I see them in June I always have to ask them do you have to remind me so soon? Summer just started! I forgive them for trying to make time pass so quickly though because they’re so cheery, even in June.

Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is a European native that has been cultivated for centuries. The flat flower heads are made up of many button like disc flowers; almost like a daisy without the white ray flowers that we call petals. Tansy is a natural insect repellent and was used as such in colonial times. Dried tansy added to the straw in mattresses was said to keep bedbugs away. Most tansy plants are seen in gardens but it had naturalized itself in New England by 1785 and can still be occasionally found growing along roadsides. It’s a good plant to use in vegetable gardens for pest control. The ancient Greeks grew tansy for medicinal use but modern science has found it to be toxic.

Johnny jump up (Viola tricolor) is still blooming. It is plant that has been known for a very long time and goes by many common names. It’s said to have 60 names in English and 200 more in other languages. In medieval times it was called heartsease and was used in love potions. Viola tricolor is believed to be the original wild form of all the modern varieties of pansy. I’m lucky enough to have them popping up at the edge of my lawn. I always make sure I miss them with the lawn mower.

I saw this pretty bi-color phlox in a friend’s garden. Many phlox blossoms are very fragrant but I forgot to smell this one. What would a fall garden be without a phlox or two? They’re so beautiful, it’s hard not to love them.

I saw this view of deep purple New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) and goldenrods along a roadside recently. In the past I’ve complained that there weren’t enough of these dark purple asters but this year I’m seeing them everywhere I go. I’ve noticed that bees seem to prefer the lighter colored ones but these still had hundreds of bees all over them. In fact every aster plant I’ve seen this year has been just swarming with bees of all kinds.

This is a close up of the same flowers that are in the previous photo, but the bright sunshine lightened their color.

I’ve never seen an aster with so many blooms on it. I don’t know its name but this is a cultivated aster that grows in a local park. It’s a very beautiful thing, and quite big.

At a glance this might look like an aster but it’s actually a chrysanthemum blossom. Mums are big business here and at this time of year nurseries sell them as fast as they get them. Though they are called “hardy mums” there are few that can really make it through a New Hampshire winter. I have a purple one that has come up for years and many of the white ones will survive. I used to work at a nursery that grew mums from cuttings; ten thousand of them each year, and I’ll never forget having to water them. It took all day, and I had to do it every day that it didn’t rain. I was very happy when they sold.

You might think I had found a blue lily but no, this is a hosta blossom. They’re very pretty things but hostas are grown more for their foliage than the flowers. This plant was in a local park and had hundreds of blossoms on it.

Sweet everlasting (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) won’t be finished blooming until we have a freeze but it doesn’t start blooming as early as black eyed Susans and others do. If you crush a few blossoms and smell them they smell like maple syrup, and that helps identify the plant. Its common name comes from the way it lasts for years after being cut and dried. Usually the plant has many buds rather than open flowers, as this example shows. An odd name for it 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.

It’s hard to tell when a sweet everlasting blossom is actually fully open, but this is what the seed pods look like after the seeds have been released. It’s as pretty as a flower.

Red clover (Trifolium pretense) is originally from Europe and was brought to this country by English colonials, who used it medicinally and agriculturally. It is a very beautiful thing that often glows with its own inner light, and I have to stop and admire it every now and then. Had I been an early settler I surely would have had a few of its seeds in my pocket. There are a lot of clover plants by the Ashuelot River in Swanzey and in the evening the cottontails come out to eat them. I’ve noticed that when they’re done eating the non-native red clover they go and hide in a thicket of another non-native plant-barberry. Neither man nor beast will follow them into that thicket, and they know it.

There are something like 70 species of Helianthus and it’s hard to know which one you’re looking at sometimes. I know this one isn’t the woodland sunflower but that’s about all I know. I like seeing them just the same, whether I can name them or not.

Our native purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) are still blooming but they’ve slowed down quite a lot and are busier making seeds than new flowers. This plant is well known for its medicinal qualities as well as its beauty. According to the USDA the plant was used by many Native American tribes throughout North America to treat a variety of ailments. It was used as a pain reliever, anti-inflammatory, as a treatment for toothaches, coughs, colds, and sore throats. It was also used as an antidote for various forms of poisonings, including snake bite. Portions of it were also used to dress wounds and treat infections. Modern medicine has found it useful to combat bacterial and viral infections and as an immune system booster. I grow it because butterflies and bees like its nectar, birds like the seeds, and I like to admire its beauty.

Imagine; a sunflower turning its back to the sun. But according to an article on National Public Radio this is normal; scientists have found that once sunflowers mature like the one shown they stop following the sun and face east. When young they greet the sunrise in the east and then as the day progresses they follow it to the west until it sets. During the night time they slowly turn back to the east to again to wait for the next sunrise. They do this through a process called heliotropism, which scientists say can be explained by circadian rhythms, a 24 hour internal clock that humans also have. The plant actually turns itself by having different sides of its stem elongate at different times. Growth rates on the east side of the stem are high during the day and low at night. On the west side of the stem the growth rate is high at night and low during the day, and the differing growth rates turn the plant.

Isn’t nature amazing?

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. ~Luther Burbank.

Thanks for coming by.

Read Full Post »

The Last of the Flowers

As I write this the weatherman is telling me that we will see the 20s tonight, so that will be the end of flowering for all but the hardiest plants for this year. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been watching to see which plants were going to hold on until the very end.                       

The last thing I expected to see were low-bush blueberries blossoming (Vaccinium angustifolium,) but here they are. 

This striped wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) didn’t have any flowers but I think the leaves are as beautiful as the flowers. They turn a deep purple color as it gets colder. This plant is also called spotted wintergreen but I don’t know why because it isn’t spotted at all. Native Americans used this plant medicinally and as a flavoring. It is still used to flavor some candies today. From what I have seen it is very rare in this area, and might be endangered.

A few asters are still blooming where they were protected from frost. Goldenrod (Solidago) also still blooms were it has been protected by overhanging tree branches. Last year I saw a dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) blooming on December 21^st. This one might make it to that date-it looked good and healthy.

Fern leaved bleeding heart (Dicentra) can take a lot of cold and often survives light frosts. This plant had a lot of trouble with the dryness this summer. I found this display of chrysanthemums and asters at the local college. They even had ornamental cabbage and kale tucked in here and there. Red clover (Trifolium pratense) is probably the flower most seen here right now. It can take a lot of cold and will survive heavy frost. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium ) is going into its second blooming period and I‘ve been seeing it regularly. Sweet everlasting (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) holds its flowers in tight buds that seem to never open, but I came across this plant with open flowers. What look like petals are actually bracts that open and fall off as the seed ripens. This plant is also called rabbit tobacco and resembles pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea.) Common Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is another plant that holds its disc flowers with no petals in tight buds, but these had opened slightly. Tansy is a cultivated plant that has escaped into the wild. It is also a very old plant and has been used medicinally for centuries. Tansy is also an excellent natural insect repellent and in colonial times meat was often packed in its leaves.

Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower ~Hans Christian Andersen

Thanks for stopping in.

Read Full Post »

Still Blooming

When I was a professional gardener I always assumed that we would have a frost between September 15th and September 30th. More years than not, that assumption was accurate. Then last year happened and all of that went out the window. We still hadn’t had a frost when we got about sixteen inches of snow on Halloween. This year-here we go again-still no frost here. In fact just yesterday it reached the mid-70s.  The heat I can handle, but I’m hoping there won’t be another Halloween storm like the last. In any case, the flowers love it and many are still blooming.

This nodding burr marigold (Bidens) found a home with a roof, so it won’t have to worry about a frost.

 On a recent rainy day I found a clump of native beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana) growing near the road. The Epifagus part of the scientific name means “upon the beech” and that is where these parasitic plants grow. They don’t produce chlorophyll to make their own food so instead they insert a root like structure called a haustorium into a beech root and take what nutrition they need to survive. Native Americans made a tea from this plant that was used to treat mouth sores.

Purple-brownish beechdrop flowers are very small and hard to photograph. Each flower is tubular and has two lip-like “petals.” They produce nectar and attract insects. Tiny, scale like leaves press flat against the stem and are very hard to see. These plants are found from Canada to Florida and west as far as Louisianna. 

Native Blue toadflax (Linaria Canadensis) is another tiny flower, but easier to get a picture of than beechdrops. I found this one growing in full sun on a riverbank recently. It had just about finished blooming. This plant resembles Kalm’s Lobelia (Lobelia kalmia) but the lobelia lacks the nectar spurs found in blue toadflax blossoms. Toadflax boiled in milk is said to make an excellent fly poison.

 Native small flowered water plantain (Alisma subcordatum) was also blooming along the river a couple of weeks ago. The blossoms have now faded but the plants still thrive. These small white flowers have only tree petals so they are hard to confuse with other plants. The egg shaped, thick, fleshy leaves are also unusual. There is also a large water plantain (Alisma triviale) with flowers that are about twice the size as those shown. These plants often grow in the water at the edges of ponds and rivers. Native Americans used to eat the dried root. 

It’s easy, especially at this time of year, to be fooled into thinking that this plant is an aster, but it is actually a chrysanthemum-another popular fall garden plant. I found this one growing in a local park. Its leaves give away its identity.

This is an aster that I found growing on the side of the road. I turned around and went back to get a picture because it was such a deep, dark and beautiful purple-much different than the lighter purple varieties seen.

 This jimson weed (Datura stramonium) is another roadside plant, but it was growing in a pasture along with hundreds of others. Jimson weed is considered poisonous to both humans and livestock so I was surprised to see it in a cow pasture.  This hallucinogenic plant in the nightshade family is also called loco weed and was used by Native Americans on spiritual quests. The original common name was “Jamestown weed” which was given to it after English soldiers in the Jamestown colony began to behave oddly after eating leaves of the plant. It is said that they “behaved like animals for several days.”  This plant is considered exceedingly dangerous due to poisonings and deaths by people trying to get high.

 I have a white flowered native obedient (Physostegia virginiana) plant trying to overtake my gardens and not too long ago someone posted a picture of a beautiful pinkish purplish one like the one in this photo. I told the blogger that I hadn’t ever seen that color obedient plant flower and then, that very day, I found this one. It seems like if I can’t find a plant all I need to do is say that I can’t find it on this blog and before you know it, I’ve found one. That has happened several times.

Red clover (Trifolium pretense) is looking a little bedraggled, but still blooms just about everywhere I go. Native Americans made a tea from the plant for use as, among other things, a cough syrup. Today scientists are researching its value as a cancer treatment and for respiratory ailments.

 I wasn’t surprised to find sand jointweed (Polygonella articulata) growing in pure sand along an old road but I was surprised to see it at all, because I had been watching for it for 2 or 3 weeks without any luck. These plants grow to about a foot tall but the thin, wiry stems and small white flowers easily blend into the sand and make them hard to see.  The leaves are small and lie against the stem so the plant appears leafless. The plant gets its name from the way the stems are jointed.

These sand jointweed (Polygonella articulata) flowers looked like they had a bit of pink in them. These plants seem very hard to photograph-I had to make 2 or 3 attempts before I got something I could live with.

 

It’s easy to see why sedum is such a hit in the fall. This pink one I found in a local park is probably a cultivar called “Autumn Joy, “which is an old favorite. I think it would be even more beautiful planted with some dark purple asters.

 When I took its picture I thought this was the last rose of summer that I’d see on my rose bushes. They had a hard time this year with the extreme heat and dryness, but once the rains started in they bloomed more and more until now they are loaded with blossoms. Last year it was still blooming in December.

Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,

We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves ~ Humbert Wolfe

Thanks for stopping in.

Read Full Post »