Wildflower Wednesday: The Wild Ones

We have been blessed with warm temperatures this past week--days in the 70's, just perfect for planting bulbs and some final garden clean-up.  That is, when it hasn't been raining!  Instead of Murphy's Law, I've come up with a new one, "Rose's Law":  If you have a whole day off to work in the garden, it's going to rain:)  Ah well, after the past summer's drought, I guess I shouldn't be complaining and instead be thankful that we are finally getting some much-needed moisture to end the drought.  Before I go out to sneak in a few more bulbs before heading off to a dentist's appointment, let's take a moment to celebrate Wildflower Wednesday by looking at a few wilder varieties of natives/wildflowers growing in and around my garden this fall.

A few blooms remain on the Aster pilosus, commonly known as Hairy Aster or Frost Aster.  I prefer the latter name, especially since this aster is the very last to bloom and is undeterred by frost.  This is a plant that appears of its own free will all over the farm; in fact, most people would probably consider it a weed rather than a wildflower.  But it certainly has its redeeming qualities.

My husband has been laid up for most of the summer with back and knee problems and hasn't been able to keep up with the trimming around the farm buildings, but I'm glad he didn't get a chance to cut these Frost
Asters down in front of the old shed.  I wish I had taken this photo a few weeks earlier when they first bloomed, but you'll have to take my word for it that in their prime they provided billows of white blooms that looked as good as anything I might have purposely planted here.

But the most important characteristic of the Frost Aster is that the bees love it!  Blooming at the end of the season, it provides a last valuable source of food for bees before winter sets in.  This plant is not for everyone, but if you would like to learn more about it, you can check out my earlier post here.

 Another plant that seems to have appeared on its own is this small tree behind the butterfly garden. It took me a long time to identify it, but after seeing numerous specimens growing in the wild at our local forest preserve and then doing a little research, I finally found that it is a Rough-leaved Dogwood, Cornus drummondii.  Like other tamer dogwoods, it is covered in white blooms in the spring, but I also like its burgundy foliage in the fall.

Although it is no longer blooming, I did want to include this plant from earlier this fall that also appears voluntarily all around the outbuildings.  It's a type of Persicaria, probably Persicaria cespitosa though I'm not positive.  I remember the first time I saw Persicaria mentioned on someone's blog and being aghast!  Back in the days when farmers "walked beans"--pulling out weeds by hand in soybean fields--rather than spraying them with herbicides, I learned very quickly to identify this plant better known to us as smartweed.
As a teenager living on a farm, walking beans provided one of the few sources of a little spending money for me, and, of course, my dad believed in teaching us about the value of hard work. After hours of pulling or cutting out these plants that quickly spread to make a tangled mess, choking out the valuable soybean plants, I soon learned to hate smartweed.

Lest I offend anyone, I have since seen some lovely examples of  Persicaria cultivars growing in private gardens and in botanic gardens--and I agree they are worth planting in a garden.  But this is one type of Persicaria you definitely don't want in your garden, or it will quickly take over.  I was pleased with this photo and thought it looked rather pretty and innocent here . . . but it met an untimely end soon after the photo shoot:)

While I was trying to find the proper botanical name for the smartweed, I was surprised to see one of my favorite plants listed in the Illinois Wildflowers website as a "weedy wildflower."  Belamcanda chinensis or Blackberry Lily certainly doesn't belong in the same category as smartweed!  A native of East Asia, this plant can occasionally be found growing in the wild throughout the state.  However, I've tried for years to get these lilies established here with no luck--until this year.  Thanks to some seeds from Frances, I was thrilled to have not one, but two blooming lilies this year.

As much as I like its unique blooms, it is in the fall that I most enjoy Blackberry Lily.  One look at these berries, actually seeds, and you can see how it gets its name.  Since the plant spread by either rhizomes or seeds, I might be lucky enough to have several more of those pretty little lilies in the future.  While the other plants listed here probably aren't appropriate for most gardens, Blackberry Lily is a great addition anywhere for both summer and fall interest.

To learn more about other wildflowers and natives, visit our hostess Gail and her the bee-utiful garden at Clay and Limestone.

Wildflower Wednesday: Late Again...

Everyone loves trees, but not all trees are created equal.  Wild mulberry trees are a good example of a nuisance tree.  They often pop up here around the foundations of the farm outbuildings or other undesirable places, and they grow so quickly that if not removed immediately, they usually have to be cut down with a chainsaw.  Another tree that I assumed was a "weedy" tree grows at the back of what is now my butterfly garden.  But several springs ago, when I first planted this area with some natives and other butterfly-friendly plants, I noticed this tree was blooming.  It's taken me awhile, but I am 99% sure that this is a Rough-leaved Dogwood Cornus drummondii.

Rough-leaved dogwood is a native woody shrub or tree common in most areas of Illinois except for the northeastern part of the state.  During late spring or early summer cymes of white flowers develop and remain in bloom for 2-3 weeks. The photo above was taken two weeks ago, but a few blooms still remain.

  The nectar and pollen of the dogwood attract a host of different species of bees and other insects.  Later in the summer white drupes develop, which are a high-caloric food source for many birds and some mammals.  This has been one of the difficulties in identifying this dogwood for me, because I've never seen the drupes.  However, according to Illinois Wildflowers they disappear rapidly in the fall because of their attractiveness to wildlife, so perhaps that is the reason I've never seen them.   Young twigs and branchlets are a reddish brown; the red twigs in winter were the first clue for me that this was some type of dogwood.

Rough-leaved Dogwood develops from a branching taproot.  "However, if this woody plant is subjected to disturbance, it may develop suckers or underground runners that send up vegetative shoots. These vegetative shoots can develop into a colony of multistemmed shrubs" (Illinois Wildflowers).  Obviously, I have disturbed this plant because it has responded to my attempts in cutting back suckers to tame it by producing even more.  Despite its importance to pollinators and wildlife, Rough-leaved dogwood is not a plant I would recommend adding to your garden, especially in a suburban landscape.  But in a woodland setting or in the wild, such as at the nearby forest preserve where I've seen it growing along the trails, it is rather pretty, especially in bloom.

While I didn't plant the Rough-leaved Dogwood, I did purposely plant some Butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa which seems to grow larger and larger each year.  The blooms start out orange and then turn to an orangey-yellow as they open fully.

The foliage of this plant is consumed by the Monarch caterpillars, which is why I planted it in the first place.  But if you look carefully at this enlarged photo, you'll see it attracts all kinds of insects.  If anyone can identify these striped insects, I would love to know what they are because I have them everywhere.  The smaller insects are also a mystery--after zooming in much more closely, I'm pretty sure they are some kind of alien ants:)

My favorite natives, the purple coneflowers and the black-eyed Susans are just beginning to bloom here.  But as a taste of what is to come, here are two photos taken of a Rudbeckia fulgida taken yesterday morning at the Idea Garden.

Celebrating National Pollinators Week, this is another reminder why native plants are so BEE-autiful!

This post is part of the Wildflower Wednesday hosted by pollinator champion Gail at Clay and Limestone, the fourth Wednesday of every month, not the last Wednesday.  (Note to self: check the calendar!)