A Blue and White Wildflower Wednesday

July is the perfect time to celebrate native plants in my Midwest garden.  Besides the still-blooming coneflowers, there are rudbeckias, liatris, gaillardia, a native agastache, and Joe-Pye Weed all in bloom.  Asters and goldenrod are also showing the first signs of color, nearly a month earlier than usual.  While all of these would be appropriate candidates for this month's celebration of Wildflower Wednesday,  I wanted to focus instead on what is not in my garden.  For the past few weeks driving along the country roads and even the highways, I've been distracted by the clouds of blue and white blossoms billowing along the roadsides.

It has been too hot and muggy lately to pull off the roadside and tramp among the weeds, not to mention rather dangerous, but that wasn't necessary to take a photo.  All I needed to do was to walk out in my very back yard by the outbuildings and rusty farm implements to find similar images.  Clouds of white above . . .

. . . and blue nearby. My favorite color scheme.

Most people would classify chicory, Cichorium intybus, as a weed, but there are very few flowers in the garden that have the true sky-blue color of this plant.  Too bad it doesn't have prettier foliage, or gardeners would be adding it to their collection.  Chicory has been used as a medicinal herb since the days of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, but most people think of its use in more recent times as a coffee substitute.

Normally, I wouldn't have this proliferation of chicory, but with the drought, we haven't had to mow the lawn for weeks, and this weedy wildflower has added color to the back yard.  Notice the brown grass around this plant--don't you wish all our garden plants could survive the lack of rain like this?

The vision of white comes from the native Daucus carota, more commonly known as Queen Anne's Lace.   Again, many people think of this as a weed, but it has to be my favorite weed of all and one that I never pull or cut down.  In fact, some gardeners purposely plant this in wildlfower gardens, but I don't need to do that--I always have a plentiful supply.

Wild Carrot, as it is also known, has been used in the past as a medicinal herb, and some people have even eaten the root.  But wildflower sources caution eating the leaves, which can be confused with the very poisonous wild hemlock.  I may not have the wisdom of Socrates, but I don't think I would be tempted to try eating this plant:)  While Queen Anne's Lace may have had some useful purposes, I think its main purpose is simply ornamentation.

It has to be one of the most photogenic weeds wildflowers around, whether silhouetted against a weathered shed or growing through a rusty piece of machinery.

It's even attractive and interesting when not in bloom.

Although I wasn't able to capture a photo of either chicory or Queen Anne's Lace with an insect on it, both are attractive to various insects.  Black Swallowtail caterpillars also feed on Queen Anne's Lace.  Looking closely at the flower head, you can see that it is made up of a compound umbel, which terminates in smaller umbels, called umbellets.  A rather complex structure for such a simple, common plant!  No wonder I think it's so pretty.

I have been battling the weeds all summer long, but I have a soft spot for these two weedy wildflowers--they are welcome to stay--in my back yard!


For other wildflowers in bloom this very hot July, visit our gracious hostess and best friend of the pollinators, Gail at Clay and Limestone.

Wildflower Wednesday: Perennial Favorites

It's time for another Wildflower Wednesday, the monthly celebration of wildflowers and natives hosted by the gracious and enthusiastic Gail of Clay and Limestone.  It is perfect timing for me, as so many of my favorite natives are in bloom right now. Driving along country roads or even the interstate the past few weeks, one can't help but notice masses of the white umbels of Wild Carrot Daucus carota, or as I prefer to call it, Queen Anne's Lace.  In many places it is bordered by a profusion of blue blooms from Chicory Cichorium intybus.

Most farmers would say that Chicory is a weed, but I've always had a fondness for this weedy wildflower.  Probably it's the color, since blue is my favorite, and not many plants have such a true-blue bloom.  It pops up around our outbuildings each summer, and I'm inclined to let it stay.

I was hoping to get a long shot of the roadsides filled with chicory and Queen Anne's Lace, but pulling off a busy highway or a narrow country road didn't seem smart or safe.  So instead I pulled into a turn-off near my home to get a few close-ups.  Illinois is "The Land of Lincoln," and throughout the state you will find not only museums, but promotions of any ties the area has to the man many of us consider our greatest President. Just a mile from my home is this historical marker, where Kelly's Tavern once stood, a place where Lincoln once stayed during his days of riding the circuit practicing law.

Next to the marker is a small planting of various prairie plants, including tall Rudbeckia, Joe-Pye Weed, common milkweed, rattlesnake master, and other yet unidentified wildflowers.  I'm describing all this to you because when I downloaded my photos yesterday, my computer was acting up and I accidentally deleted all those photos, including what I thought were some great shots of butterflies--grrrrr.

But I did manage to save one of the best, this one of a rattlesnake master Eryngium yuccifolium. The unusual name of this native probably came from its use by some Native American tribes who used the leaves and fruit in their rattlesnake medicine song and dance.  As you can see, the bumbles and other pollinators love it; in fact, this whole area was full of buzzing creatures who didn't exactly appreciate my disturbing them to get a few photos--maybe they hexed my camera:)

I don't have to travel anywhere, though, to find natives this time of year.  The Joe-Pye weed Eupatorium purpureum has been impervious to the thugs in my butterfly garden this year and towers above them, though not to the exaggerated height I claimed in a previous post--it stands about 6 feet, not 10 feet tall.  This specimen does not have the purple tinge to its stem as many of these plants do, and for awhile this spring I wasn't sure if this really was Joe.  I was so glad to see it start blooming a few weeks ago and being reassured that it wasn't a giant ragweed instead!

A newcomer to my garden this year is Liatris spicata, planted from bulbs purchased at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show in March.  Talk about easy to grow!  The plan was to have them interspersed with white coneflowers to add some vertical interest in the arbor bed. The coneflowers didn't get planted, but the liatris filled in this area quite nicely on their own.  I planted eight bulbs, imagining eight spikes of purple, but as you can see, they are much more robust than that.

When the coneflowers start winding down, I get a little sad, but not to worry--the Susans take their place. All of them are re-seeders from previous years, so I won't even  try to identify them, though most, I suspect, are from original Rudbeckia hirta. I was a little disappointed in the turn-out in the butterfly garden, no doubt due to the proliferation of asters and obedient plants, but I was happy to see one specimen of the new 'Cherry Brandy' Rudbeckia return. Many of the returnees this year are taller and more slender, perhaps because of the limited space.  The Rudbeckia pictured above is in the lily bed, where I definitely did not plant it!  It doesn't fit into the planting scheme in this garden area, but with a cheery face like this, who would have the heart to pull it out?  I certainly didn't.

Finally, my favorite of all the natives--my beloved purple coneflowers Echinacea purpurea.  After a month of blooming, they're beginning to fade and look a bit ratty, but I still enjoy them.  Soon the goldfinches will be feasting on their center disks.

I've gone on and on before about the many admirable traits of purple coneflowers, so I won't repeat myself today, but if you would like to know more about these natives you can click on a much earlier post here. Suffice it to say, that they are pollinator magnets of the first order.

 

Butterflies have been scarce around here this year, but when one does arrive, it's sure to find the coneflowers.  This Monarch doesn't seem to mind that the flower has seen better days.  Attracting birds, bees, and butterflies, and pretty to boot--what more could you ask of a flower?

As a final note, it is still hot here in central Illinois, but we have had a few much-needed rainshowers over the last few days.  During this heat wave and near-drought, though, all the natives pictured above have been real troopers, braving the heat and lack of attention without complaining like their fussier non-native companions.  Another good reason to go native!

If you would like to know more about any of the native plants featured here, you might want to check out my favorite source, Illinois Wildflowers  Or better yet, check out this month's contributors to Wildflower Wednesday at Gail's.