A New Perspective on Weeds

Old Man Winter isn't done yet. A little more snow has fallen, then rain, and a chance for more snow mid-week, all creating one big mess. While I enjoy seeing the magical wintry scenes of bloggers in the South, where snow is a novelty, I have become jaded about winter's beauty in my own backyard. Venturing outside is limited to necessities such as walking Sophie, and trudging through 2-3 foot frozen snowbanks with a 70-pound dog in tow--make that a dog with me in tow--is not very conducive to taking photos anyway.




But looking at some photos taken in the last few weeks of weeds and stubborn wild vines encased in ice has inspired me. Instead of dwelling on winter, I've taken Gail's suggestion and done some browsing through the photo archives, finding the photos for a post I never got around to publishing. Instead of dwelling on winter, let's think about August, shall we?





Several times this past summer I visited one of my favorite nearby places, Meadowbrook Park. Walking around the Prairie Restoration area, whether alone or with Beckie or Sophie, I stopped to admire the native wildflowers, such as the gray coneflowers pictured above.

Over time, and with the help of the book Illinois Wildflowers by Dan Kurz, I was able to identify more of the wildflowers each time, such as this ironweed. The book was initially checked out of the library, renewed, returned, then checked out and renewed again until I finally broke down and bought my own copy this winter. A handy reference like this that is specific to my area is well worth the money spent.

No book or internet search was necessary, however, to identify wild carrot, more poetically known as Queen Anne's Lace. This wildflower, or weed depending on your point of view, grows everywhere here and is a common sight along roadsides during the summer.

Inspired by the natives at Meadowbrook, I decided to take a look around my own yard for wildflowers. The past summer was an ideal one for the garden, with cooler than normal temperatures and a regular supply of rainfall. Perennials that don't like our hot and humid Illinois summers thrived, and watering the garden was seldom necessary, other than the containers and new plants. But it also meant it was an ideal summer for weeds as well!

Daily walks with Sophie around the farm made me stop and notice for the first time some of the weeds--er, wildflowers--growing around the outbuildings, and I decided to try to identify them. Photo breaks provided the perfect opportunities to practice Sophie's "halt/sit" commands for puppy classes. Besides the Queen Anne's Lace, the chicory in this and the previous photo is an easy one to identify. Farmers would definitely call this a weed, but Sophie and I like the delicate blue flowers.

The next weed I really took notice of was this thistle. Thistle is a common sight in any true prairie planting, but it's not welcome on a farm. Canadian thistle, brought to this area in an experiment that went wrong, is considered a noxious weed. I'm not sure if this is field thistle or tall thistle; they are all members of the Asteraceae family.

The thistle is a favorite of bees and later in the season of goldfinches. Sorry about the blurry photo, but it's the only one I had of a bee on the bloom; I never managed to get one of a goldfinch, but just imagine the color combination of a bright yellow bird atop this pink seedhead.

No wonder the finch feeder didn't need to be refilled that often; with all the available seeds au naturelle here, there was plenty to keep them all happy. Note the wispy thistledown which means there will be even more of these plants here next year--not a good thing, unfortunately.

Even with a reference book and several good websites, identifying these weeds is not easy, especially when you are looking at six-month old photos. This plant appeared to be another kind of thistle, because of the prickles on its leaves, but I couldn't find any reference showing a thistle that looked like this, with its yellow blooms.

Another mystery behind the barn--perhaps a wild parsnip? My husband would be appalled if he knew I were posting photos of all these weeds. But in his defense, it was hard to keep up with everything around the place this summer. Mowing is an all-day job here with over five acres of lawn, and frequent rains made it even more difficult. Although I trim around the house and the garden areas, the back areas are Husband's domain. To make matters worse, the heavy-duty gas-powered trimmer spent much of the summer in the repair shop.

So, if you can't beat 'em, you might as well enjoy them, right? Especially this weed that surprised me one day by producing delicate yellow blooms. This one really has me puzzled--I have nothing in any source that resembles this weed.

Even the beetles liked it.

Not nearly as attractive is this weed, which might be pigweed. An interesting bit of trivia is that many of the common names for these weeds have animal names in them--pigweed, chickweed, horseweed, horsenettle, lambs' quarters, and dogbane, just to name a few. I have no idea why; just thought it was interesting.

Grasses are even harder for me to distinguish. While this grass made an interesting photo, it's definitely not the kind you would want to cultivate in your garden.

But no book of photos is needed to identify some weeds. Summers spent as a teenager helping my father "walk beans," that is, pulling out all the weeds in acres and acres of soybeans, not only taught me the names of some of these weeds but also taught me to hate them as well. Smartweeds, like those above, can be prolific.

Even worse are buttonweeds, also known as velvetleaf.

But the worst of all are these innocuous-looking pink buds. If you don't recognize this weed, it's a cockleburr; trust me, this is a weed you don't want anywhere. Brush up against the dried seedheads, and you'll find burrs embedded in your clothes, your gardening gloves, and in dog's fur. The only upside I can find to this weed is that it supposedly was the inspiration for Velcro, although according to Wikipedia, it was a relative, burdock, that was the actual origin.

The adage about a weed being "a plant in the wrong place" is certainly true. For any of you who have spent considerable money on a nice cultivar of goldenrod, notice this one--this goldenrod is growing through a crack in concrete!

Morning Glories live up to their name, with this illuminated blossom showing up just after dawn last summer. But it's not such a welcome sight to the farmer when it's winding its way up the cornstalks in the field as this one was doing.

Weeds or wildflowers? It's all in your perspective and their placement, I guess. While these interesting specimens may not survive for long this summer, if Mr. P has his way, I do hope these unnamed daisies manage to stay for awhile. Growing at will next to a shed, they make me smile, even if they are weeds.





"A weed is but an unloved flower." Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Update: Thank you to all of you who expressed concern over my father's recent stroke and surgery. He was finally able to come home from the hospital this past week and is recovering slowly, but surely.

Sophie's Turn: Nature Walks

Where did autumn go? I was wondering this on Monday, the last day of November, as I took advantage of a little sunshine and warmer temperatures (50's) to put up Christmas lights and take care of a few neglected gardening chores. A few geraniums were potted up and brought inside, and two of the potted mums that still showed some signs of life were planted in the garden in the hopes they will survive until next fall. Everything else that didn't get done during this wet and busy fall will just have to wait until spring.




With the garden put to bed for the winter, this is a good time to sort through some unused picture files and finally put together a post I had planned a month ago. In an attempt to enjoy the last remants of fall, I've taken Sophie on a couple of nature walks. She has plenty of room to run around our yard each day, but I thought it would be good for her to have some different experiences. This week we visited one of my favorite places to walk, the prairie restoration area at Meadowbrook Park, and earlier this fall I took her to a local forest preserve just a 10 minute drive from my house, which we refer to as Homer Lake.



Sophie often lies by my side as I sit at the computer, and since Toby and Coconut have been allowed to guest post here, I've decided to let her provide the narration for the photos. Please keep in mind she just turned a year old, so she's not too literate yet, though she is quite articulate in making her wishes known. Here is her perspective:

On my birthday this week, my Mom took me to Meadowbrook Park.

We had to walk over a bridge. Mom stopped to look for the beaver dam she had read about in the paper. She thinks that might be one of them at the far edge of the river. But I didn't smell any beavers here . . . um, what's a beaver?




This is the path we followed on our walk. Mom said we had to stay on the sidewalk, but I wanted to follow all those strange smells off to the side. There must be lots of creatures living in these trees and shrubs.

We stopped to look at trees, like this one with berries on it.

And we looked at plants. Mom says this is goldenrod.

And these are milkweed pods. Mom says that butterflies like these, but I didn't see any. I wonder where all the butterflies are? I like butterflies; they're fun to chase.

Most of the plants were all dried up like these. Mom says they look really pretty in the summer when they are different colors, but I like everything in black and white anyway.

We had a good walk, but Mom grabbed my leash and made me sit when I saw a squirrel running next to the path. I really wanted to chase that squirrel! I bet I could have caught him, too. We also saw some other dogs, but Mom kept a tight hand on my leash and wouldn't let me say hello. I don't know why not; I just wanted to play with them.

We saw other people, too. Mom finally let me say hello to a nice lady after I whined a lot and the lady said she liked dogs. She was a nice lady. Mom says I can't go up to strangers. But I don't know what a "stranger" is. I like all people. I really like the little kids who come to visit me; they're fun to play with. But I also like the man who drives a brown truck and delivers packages to our house sometimes. And I like the man who fixed the furnace and the men who brought some furniture to our house--I helped them unload their truck. But I really liked the man who put new carpeting in the spare bedroom. I watched him all morning, and he didn't mind when I took some of the old carpet to play with for awhile.

Okay, Sophie, we all know you are definitely a people-lover and that all you want is a little attention. But could we get back to our walks, please?

Okay, okay. The park is nice, but my favorite place is Homer Lake. The first time we went there the trees had all their leaves, and it was warm.

The next time we went there, most of the leaves were on the ground.

There are lots of neat things to see and smell. Mom says this is a bird station,

but I didn't see any birds in it.

There are trees everywhere. Some of them are kind of strange

and don't have any branches like this one.

And there's lots of water. I bet I could swim in it if Mom would just let me.

But Mom wanted to look at other things. Especially the trees.

Some of them still had leaves and what Mom called "fall color."

There were pretty orange trees on the road into the park.

Mom lets me lead the way most of the time, so I don't mind if she wants to stop and read a sign.

Or stop to take a picture of a flower. She said this was goldenrod and that she was surprised to see it still blooming in early November.

Most of the flowers weren't blooming any more. But I like the white fuzzy things on their heads.

I like to smell wildflowers. But I don't like cock-a-burrs. Sometimes I run into them when I'm chasing rabbits. They stick to my fur, and Mom has to help me get them out.

I'm glad these aren't those sticky things. They're pretty, aren't they?

My favorite place in the whole park, though, are the trails. There's a new smell around every corner. I sure hope Mom takes me back here soon!

As long as the weather permits, I want to make these infrequent excursions with Sophie more often. Besides giving her a chance to survey new surroundings, these walks are great exercise for me. Not only the walking, but being pulled on a leash by a 67-pound dog has to be some kind of weight-bearing exercise, I would think. But most of all, both of us enjoy the beauty and peacefulness of our surroundings; it's a sensory experience we both can enjoy.

When Life Hands You Lemons . . .

Since the beginning of summer, my good friend Beckie and I have talked about taking a short trip to Chicago to see some of the many garden sights in the Windy City and, if possible, to meet up with a few Chicagoland Bloggers. One thing or another kept preventing us from going until we finally decided the first week in October was it--we would try to spend a couple days in Chicago or at the very least make one long day of it. We put it on our calendars, but as so often happens these days, "life" intervened, and we weren't able to go. We were both disappointed, but decided we could at least take part of a day to explore something interesting closer to home.

Beckie recommended we visit the Master Gardeners' Idea Garden on campus to see its fall colors, and I suggested we stop first at Meadowbrook Park to see the wildflower garden there. Beckie had never been to Meadowbrook, and my other visit was in August to see the Prairie Restoration site, but I missed the wildflower garden. The wildflower garden is located on the south side of the park on a street I seldom drive, so I had never noticed that the farmstead located there is actually part of the park.

We began our walk down the path to see any wildflowers that might still be blooming, but obviously fall is not the best time to view wildflowers. You could see the dried seedheads of Queen Anne's Lace and we did spot a lone coneflower still blooming, but even the goldenrod had turned to brown. It really is a lovely, shaded place--perfect for a walk--so we put it on our mental "to-do" list for next spring and summer when it should be in all its glory.

Our stop, though, was far from disappointing. On the way to the wildflower path, we passed by the farmstead which was surrounded by an herb garden and flower beds still in glorious bloom. I was especially happy to realize that rather than demolish the existing farmhouse and outbuildings, which so often happens as a result of urban sprawl, the park preserved these buildings and incorporated them into the park. I'm not sure what any of the buildings are used for or if they are open to the public, but they certainly look well-maintained. They even preserved the old windmill, once a common fixture on every farmstead, but now a rarity.

I still remember the old windmill on my grandfather's farm, creaking in the wind. Maybe I'm getting too sentimental, but they look more attractive than the new wind turbines popping up across the country, don't you think? Of course, the old ones were used to pump water from the well; I don't think they had the capacity to provide much more power than that. As electrification spread across the countryside, the old windmills became obsolete, and most were eventually torn down.

Before we headed to the flowerbeds and herb garden around the house, we noticed a sign that said "Organic gardening plots" and decided to give them a quick look. I believe these are plots given to anyone who requests one, similar to Veg Plotting's allotments in the UK. Each plot was surrounded by a small fence of chicken wire, and various gardening styles were apparent. There were still some vegetables, including tomatoes, chili peppers, and broccoli, and also some fall plantings of onions, swiss chard, and gourds, as well as some unusual vegetables we weren't sure of. A tall plant held what appeared to be large okra, and a vertically climbing vine had cucumber-like fruit. But what really attracted both of us were the mass plantings of flowers still in bloom. These plots aren't much larger than my own small vegetable garden, but they all seemed to find plenty of room for flowers amongst the veggies.

Zinnias were still showing off everywhere, but these cosmos were especially beautiful. These were over 6 feet tall.

I've seen cosmos pictured on so many blogs this year, but I've never grown them. Now I wonder why--I really like these flowers. Thanks to Tina and the seeds she sent me, though, there will be cosmos in my garden next year!

Here's another flower I never grow--nasturtiums. Again, I think why not? Another omission I need to remedy next year. This close-up of the blossoms doesn't show the size of the large mounds we saw.

In the flowerbeds on the farmstead site we were treated to lots of fall blooms. I liked this combination of lantana and salvia in front of the cannas. Notice the verbena boneriensis popping into the far sides of the photo. Thanks to Cheryl, I will have this plant in my garden next year, too!

Beckie and I could have each done a lengthy post on berries in the garden if we had only waited until yesterday! This plant was just one of many with berries, but we were completely puzzled as to what it was. It wasn't until we later went to the Idea Garden that we saw the same plants labelled as a "blackberry lily." Does anyone grow these? I would love to know what they look like in bloom.

After Meadowbrook Park--which has now been added to our list of places to visit more often-- we headed to the Idea Garden. I've posted about this garden several times; in fact, this was our fourth visit this year to see it. Hoping to get some ideas about how to add some color to our own fading fall gardens, we weren't diappointed.

Even from a distance you can immediately see that this garden isn't languishing as the days turn cooler. Of course, with a crew of volunteer Master Gardeners at work, it is easier to keep up with all the gardening chores.

Annuals that were past their prime were pulled up and replaced with fall plants like these mums and flowering kale.

I really liked this small kale--"sweet" sounds a bit treacly, but it's the only word I can think of to describe it. A small variety, the soft pink flower at the center resembled a rose.

Not everything was new, though--this sumac tree has finally come into its own, showing off its bright oranges, yellows, and rusts. Unfortunately, it was mid-day, so the sun washed out some of its beautiful color in this photo.

Other plants were sporting berries for the fall, like this beautyberry bush.

This was a plant we couldn't identify. We don't remember seeing it before; could it be it has changed to this lovely magenta for the fall? Unfortunately, some of the labels were missing or completely obscured by other plants. Does anyone know what this might be? It had to be well over six feet tall.

The garden still holds its appeal for wildlife also. On this beautiful October day we saw so many bees and butterflies flying about the garden. This bee on the salvia was just one of several enormous bumblebees we saw.

And of course, the painted ladies, which seem to be the most common butterfly in Illinois this year.

But here is the piece d' resistance--I finally managed to get a picture of a Monarch! Monarchs seem to be in short supply around here this year, and I have been futilely trying to get a photo of the one or two that have shown up at home. This photo can't even compare to some of the beautiful shots I've seen on other blogs, but I'm afraid it's probably the best one I'm going to get this year.

As we were preparing to leave, who should fly in for a visit but my friend, the mantis! I think these guys follow me around:) I'm not sure what he was after in these zinnias, but I wish he would have eaten a little faster. During the 2-3 hours Beckie and I spent in the different gardens, we were bitten numerous times by pirate flies. These tiny gnat-like bugs have become quite a nuisance lately. They have an annoying bite, much like a mosquito, but they are supposed to be harmless and the itch goes away much quicker. The other pest we seem to have an abundance of lately are the Asian lady beetles, those small brown beetles that look like a ladybug but fly into your home and stink to high heaven if you kill them. I made a hasty exit from the garden so that I could inconspicuously extricate one that had flown down my shirt.

Well, it wasn't the Morton Arboretum or the Chicago Botanic Garden, but Beckie and I did enjoy ourselves nevertheless. We even had time for a leisurely lunch and a stop at a unique shop we'd never visited before going home. Chicago is still on our destination list, although the gardens may have to wait until Spring Fling 2009. That date is on our calendars, and as Beckie said, there will have to be a major crisis or a complete meltdown to keep us away!