Late June Flowers

Just in time for the 4th, tall meadow rue (Thalictrum pubescens) puts on its own fireworks display. Flowers on both male and female plants lack petals and have only anthers (male) or pistils (female). These are male flowers in this photo. This plant grows in moist places along stream and pond banks and gets quite tall. I’ve seen it reach 6 or 7 feet.

Northern catalpa trees (Catalpa speciosa) are loaded with beautiful orchid like blossoms right now. Soon long, thin seed pods will dangle from the branches. When I was a boy we always called catalpas string bean trees.

 

Native spreading dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium) is a perennial wildflower that looks like a shrub. It spreads by both seeds and underground stems and is considered a weed in some places. I find large colonies of it growing in sandy soil along sunny forest edges. The plant in related to milkweed and many species of butterflies rely on it.

Spreading dogbane has small, light pink, bell shaped flowers that have deeper pink stripes on their insides. They are fragrant but their scent is hard to describe. Spicy maybe. This plant is pollinated by butterflies and the flowers have barbs inside that trap short tongued insects. That’s how it gets another of its common names: flytrap dogbane. Each flower is just big enough to hold a pea.

Most people seeing this flower would say that it is yellow hawkweed and they would be half right. This is the blossom of rattlesnake weed (Hieracium venosum,) which is in the hawkweed family and is sometimes called rattlesnake hawkweed.  The flower clusters grow at the tops of long, wiry stems and that makes getting a photo of the flowers and leaves together just about impossible. I’ve been trying for quite a while.

The foliage of rattlesnake weed changes as the season progresses. The leaves shown here started out very purple in the spring, with deep purple veins. They were also very hairy, but now they are smooth and green with reddish veins. The plant’s common name comes from the thought that it grew where there were rattlesnakes. Because of the very unusual foliage I think it is one of our most beautiful native plants, but unfortunately it is also extremely rare. This is the only one I’ve ever seen.

 

Our meadows are spangled with maiden pinks and yellow cinquefoil right now. The two colors go very well together. If you didn’t know better you’d think it had been planned.

Maiden pinks (Dianthus deltoids) originally hail from Europe and Asia and were imported to use in gardens. Of course they immediately escaped and can now be seen just about everywhere. The name “pinks” comes from the way the petal edges look like they were cut by pinking shears. Butterflies love them.

The ox-eye daisies and lupines along the riverbank have been beautiful this year. The spot in this photo is where I have always found chicory (Cichorium intybus) growing as well, but there is no sign of it this year and I wonder if our harsh winter has killed it.

I found a small pond in the woods that was surrounded by yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus). This iris is a native of Europe and was introduced in the mid-1800s as a garden plant. Of course it escaped and began to naturalize and was reported near Poughkeepsie, New York in 1868 and in Concord, Massachusetts in 1884. Today it considered highly invasive and its sale and distribution is banned in New Hampshire, though in my experience it is a rarity in this part of the state. This is one of just a very few times I have seen it and it was quite beautiful. Even though I jumped from hummock to hummock to get this photo, I couldn’t get any closer without waders.

 

One of the great delights of wandering the New Hampshire woods in late spring is the amazing fragrance of wild grape flowers that wafts on the breeze. Their perfume can be detected from quite a distance so I let my nose lead me to this vine, which was growing over some sumacs. I’m always surprised that such a big scent comes from such tiny flowers, each no bigger than the head of a match. We have a few varieties of wild grape here in New Hampshire including fox grapes (Vitis labrusca).

Another native food found here in New Hampshire is the cranberry. Though I usually find them in wet, boggy areas these grew high on an embankment quite far from the water of a pond. We have two kinds here, the common cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos) and the small cranberry (Vaccinium microcarpum.) I think the plants pictured are the common cranberry.

Early European settlers thought cranberry flowers resembled the neck, head, and bill of a crane so they called them crane berries. The flower petals do have an unusual habit of curving backwards, but I’m not seeing cranes when I look at them. Cranberries were an important ingredient of Native American pemmican, which was made of dried meat, berries, and fat. Pemmican saved the life of many an early settler.

Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) bushes are common and seen everywhere here in this part of New Hampshire; common enough to be largely ignored, in fact. But, if you take the time to stop and really look at them you find that the large, flat flower heads are made up of hundreds of tiny, uncommonly beautiful flowers. Later in August each flower will have become a small purple berry so dark it is almost black.

Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning. ~ Lydia M. Child

Thanks for coming by. I hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July.

 

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Garden Flowers

I thought I’d show a few more flowers that grow in my garden and also some interesting ones that I’ve found in local parks.Last year I spotted this meadow rue (Thalictrum aquilegiifolium) at a small greenhouse in Northfield, Massachusetts. The owner said they didn’t have any for sale right then. He must have sensed that I was disappointed, because he divided one of his own and gave me a piece of it. What you see above is why I wanted it-such an unusual flower and quite larger and more colorful than the meadow rue I find growing wild. This plant is very unusual in that it doesn’t have a flower petal on it. The flowers in the photo are made up completely of male stamens. I grow this in my back yard in front of an old piece of picket fence because it gets so tall that I was afraid I might have to tie it to something. Butterflies love this plant. I know-it has been done to death and has become a cliché but this pink rose grows next to the meadow rue and it had just stopped raining when I took the picture. Here is the same rose fully opened on a drier day. This goat’s beard (Aruncus dioicus ) grows in a shady corner of my yard.  This plant was just planted last year so it hasn’t reached full size yet. When it does it will be a large, 3-5 foot tall mound with feathery white blossoms reaching up above the leaves. This is another unusual native plant that should be used in gardens more than it is, because it does well in shade. Insects swarm over it. The rhododendrons have come and gone quickly. I saw this white one in a local park and went back a week later to find it without a blossom on it. I think the early heat made short work of flowers that usually appear when it’s cool.Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) is an evergreen plant that many believe is in the rhododendron family, but it is actually more closely related to blueberries than rhododendrons. Though I saw this one in a park Mountain laurel is native to the east coast and soon the woods will be full of their white, pink or red blossoms. If you look at the back of a mountain laurel blossom you can see 10 depressions or pockets that the flower’s 10 anthers bend over and fit into. When a pollinator lands on the flower the anthers spring out of their pockets and bang against the insect, dusting it with pollen. This plant is extremely toxic and has killed livestock. The leaves are said to have been used by Native Americans wishing to destroy themselves. This plant is also called Lambkill, Spoonwood, and Calico bush. This plant goes by many common names but I’ve always called it peached leaved bluebells (Campanula persicifolia) which comes from its leaves resembling those of the peach tree. It is very easy to grow-literally a “plant it and forget it” perennial. I planted one in my garden years ago and not only is it still growing, but many seedlings from it are also growing all over the property. I usually give several away each summer to family and friends, but I’ve given it to so many people that now they say “no more.” It’s a good choice for someone just starting a garden.This is a very unusual plant that is seldom seen in the garden. So unusual in fact that I don’t think it has a common name. Its scientific name is Rogersia pinnata, variety “Elegans.” This plant likes it moist and shady but will grow in sunnier spots if it is given plenty of water. it is useful around ponds and other garden water features. I took this photo on May 27th just after it began to bud so as to show the unusual leaves.  The leaves turn a beautiful red / bronze in the fall.Here is the flower of Rogersia pinnata. It is quite tall-about chest height-and the plant is close to 2 feet across, so it needs plenty of room. The one shown here grows in the shade of trees in a local park.The feathery petals of the perennial bachelor’s button (Centaurea montana) add interest to a garden. This is another plant that is very easy to grow. It prefers full sun but can stand partial shade. These plants self-seed easily and before long will have spread to all beds in the garden.  Deadheading will prevent this, or any other plant, from self-seeding. Some call this perennial cornflower.  Another plant that isn’t often seen is the penstemon (Penstemon digitalis) or beardtongue. I grow the variety pictured, called “husker red,” more for its deep maroon leaves than the flowers. This is yet another plant that is very easy to grow. The one pictured here grows in a park, but I planted it at home years ago and have done virtually nothing to it since, other than keeping the bed it grows in weeded. It likes full sun and dry soil. Hybrid cultivars like husker red were developed from the native penstemon. This bearded iris is so old that it has no common name. It is one of the plants that live far back in my earliest memories because it always grew on a corner of our lawn when I was a boy. It is a tough plant-quite often in winter the snow plows would tear it out of the ground and in spring my father (after considerable grumbling) would stuff it back into its hole and stomp on it a couple of times. (My dad wasn’t known for his gardening abilities!) After a short recovery period it would grow and bloom as if it had never been touched.  The one in the photo grows at my house now and isn’t near enough to the road or driveway to be plowed up. Many years ago a lady I gardened for gave me a sucker from her mock orange (Philadelphus.) I plunked it down in the shade near the outside faucet when I got it home, thinking I could keep it watered easily until I found a place to plant it. Well, I never did find a place to plant it until last year, when I rolled the 12 foot tall, 6 foot wide plant onto a tarp and dragged it across the lawn to its new home. Whew-was that heavy! But it was worth it because now it can be seen from several locations both inside and out, and this year is blooming better than it ever has. Mock orange is one of our most fragrant shrubs, and its citrus-spice fragrance can’t be matched. It is a great choice for someone who doesn’t want to fuss with their shrubs. When I was a boy we had a hedge of pink / purple Rugosa roses which were so fragrant that you almost couldn’t stand it because they were all you could smell for weeks. Scents can be very powerful things and can evoke strong memories; even more so than sight or sound. This is called involuntary memory, or the Proust effect.  I now have white rugosa roses growing outside my office and when I open the windows memories come floating in with the scent and transport me back in time to a place where life went by at a much slower pace and summers seemed to go on forever.

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order~ John Burroughs

I hope you enjoyed seeing a few flowers that grow in gardens for a change of pace. Thanks for stopping by.

 

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