Who grows them and what ya got?
I have a 8ft X 8ft wildflower bed on the NW corner of the house. It's covering an old popcorn tree stump. Anyway, I'll take some pics as they bloom. Currently blooming about the place are California poppies, marigolds, crimson clover, drummodii phlox, and, though not a wildflower but native tree, a silver leaf magnolia (aka sweet bay magnolia).
First off are the poppies, marigolds, and clover (for the bees).
Phlox drummondii, kinda hard to take pics of flower when the wind is gusting.
Lets try one more.
This message was edited May 10, 2011 2:32 PM
Silver leaf (aka sweet bay) magnolia with new bloom.
This message was edited Jun 4, 2011 8:03 AM
Another from the mag;
Nice pics I can't grow wildflowers because when they emerge I think they are weeds and either spray them or pull them. Can't help myself. I like that phlox. I did let this datura come up from seed.
Yeah, it's sometimes hard to tell the diference between weeds and wildflowers.
Plains Coreopsis
I have some trilliums (dormant already so no picture). I did not steal them from the woods, the woods were scheduled to be knocked down and all the soil scraped off so I got them out a few hours before the bulldozers moved in. I was afraid they had died but watered them anyway all summer and they not only emerged in the spring, but have multiplied.
Also, we noticed a "hearts-a-bustin' " shrub, or small tree - it's a type of euonymous with green twigs - when we were building here and moved it out of the way. It also has survived and multiplied.
We have a "green dragon" wildflower, an odd plant which produces a u-shaped umbrel in the spring and then gorgeous bright orange berries in the fall. It just appeared one spring beside the driveway and we protected it so it, too, has spread.
I bought some "sugarcane plumegrass" in a catalog and planted it. It grew the first year but I don't believe it has come back this year. Also I have the kind of delphinium which is very close to the wildflower they all came from.
They are all wonderful and I hope eventually to have more.
Glad your plants are spreading.
Today we have cyrilla racemiflora (aka swamp titi).
Another of the cyrilla.
That is a very interesting plant! I don't believe I have ever seen that before. How long does it bloom? Does it make a berry?
It's a wetlands species native to the southeast.
I'm not really sure how long it will bloom in a yard but in the woods around here they tend to bloom for several weeks. As for a berry, not sure about that either. This is the first spring that I have had them.
Very interesting! We may not have a wet enough place for it here in Middle Tennessee but I'll watch for it.
Along the Gulf Coast they are found growing with the silver leaf magnolia and tupelo trees. If you have any moist bottomlands that drain from ridges there is a good chance you may have some.
They will try to become a very large bush of about 15 to 20ft and as wide. They like to form colonies.
There is a tupelo out on the island. Occasionally I have seen bees swarming on a tree I couldn't identify. Would bees swarm this tree when it's in bloom?
If you grow those indigenous to your area, chances are they'll return (multiplied) next year. I cover mine with mulch in fall and have even had annuals return (middle TN)/ About 15 varieties return, each year more plentiful than the last. My problem is that when young, many look like weeds.
Rebecca;
Yes, I have seen bees on them before. Some of the blooms have a very light citrus fragrance but many have no smell at all.
smb;
A friend asked what I was going to do about all the weds in my flower bed so I know what you mean.
I guess trees/shrubs are not technically wildflowers but they are a native bloom and look nice so I included them. Hopefully I will get a few more different wildflowers blooming soon.
All of my plants are weeds! They all show up in the U.Florida Ag extension's guide to weeds in Southern Turfgrass! I use it as a resource to identify wildflowers! Funny. :)
I have a bugbane about to bust open (cimfuga racemosa), Rudbeckia hirta and R. triloba, monarda, 4 or 5 different Asclepias, boltonia, agastache/hyssops, salvias, shasta daisies, 2 kinds of coreopsis, blanket flowers, yellow skyrocket snapdragons, liatris spicata about to POP! a lovely solidago I collected its seeds from a botanic garden in MA a few years ago, some native asters, OH! I could go on and on.
If you like to grow weeds, make sure you pop into the native plants forums. :)
thanks for starting this thread. :)
A.
More weeds.
I love these! I have to make sure to come back here when it's time to order seeds for next year's garden, the first one I can really plan. :)
Amy - last winter (2009) I planned my monarch waystation, I ordered seeds (was not a subscriber to the trade forums at that time!), drew maps, created beds. . ..
Yes, the planning is a good part of the fun. :)
Best start now - why wait!!!
A.
Absolutely delightful, Amanda - beautifully chosen and grown combination of colors. Looks like a magazine page. Do your coreopsis and gaillardia come back or do you plant each year?
Well thank you, Rebecca. :)
I grew everything except the skyrocket snaps from seed and they have come back. The gaillardia is from Ferry Morse; the Coreopsis "Tetra" is from Burpee, methinks. I have some brown-eyed susans that should start to bud soon mixed in here too. I sooo loved the snaps. I planted them in November - purchased from Metrolina. They really took off this spring. I hope to collect seeds from them.
I have had a red/orange lantana out there, red pentas, orange/yellow marigolds. It sure brightens up the place.
Glad you liked it. I deadheaded extensively last week and looks like a new flush of blooms will come out of the coreopsis soon.
What's growing in your garden? Soooo dry here now. I am keen on the danger of letting my seedlings get too dry. Better get out there now with my watering can, now that I think about it. ;)
A
This nice baby is only one year old and I was surprised at the lovely bloom and how long it has lasted. I got it from Hirt's on ebay and it was very reasonably priced. The oakleaf hydrangeas seem to like the shade and dappled sunlight here . . . and even the clay soil! I just do not have quite enough direct sun for the coreopsis and gaillardia, much as I love them. There used to be a big bed of them at the house across the street from where we lived before we retired. When that house went into foreclosure, I sneaked over there to pick them and make bouquets to take to work. Probably shouldn't admit that but hey, why let them go to waste?
OH Rebecca! The photo of your hydrangea is gorgeous. I was just telling someone on another thread how much I love mine I planted this spring. I am planting a memory garden for my dear doggie who left me at Christmas time. The oakleaf hydrangea is a native, you probably know, so they are wonderfully suited to the heat and the clay. Mine are just tiny things - purchased from a floral dept on clearance (there happened to be 2 plants in there!). There's new growth on both of them. :)
I am only planting things with white flowers in this area - it's not a huge space but I am developing 2 small beds. One of the beds gets a fair amount of morning sun. I have shasta daisy, purity cosmos, dusty miller, bugbane (cimifuga racemosa), a gorgeous white verbena, veronica "alba", "purity" Zinnia, and a centaurea "Amethyst in Snow" given to me at the RU in southern VA over Memorial Day. I have never planted white in my garden, period, so it really stands out in the shade and as a backdrop to my wildflower garden. As for wildflowers, I have been a native plant "purist" of sorts, but for Max's space I am bending the rules.
Have you heard of the Christmas Tree Shops? I don't think I was ever in one till a few weeks ago, and I found white Astilbe in there in boxes for cheap, cheap. I would never ever have thought to look there for plant/garden stuff, but I was amazed at some of the things I found in there.
Have a good night. :)
A
I'm so sorry about your doggie. What kind of doggie? We recently lost a corgi, and decided finally to have him cremated and scatter the ashes in the woods where he loved to run around. Dogs are fine friends but they sure don't last long enough. We currently have three dogs and one of them is getting pretty old.
No, I haven't run across the Christmas Tree Shops - what are they? What's an RU?
White garden like Sissinghurst? That will be magical this summer. How is your bugbane doing? That is also called black cohosh, right? There was a patch growing in a shady area by a country road where I used to walk the dogs, where the land had never been plowed. Eery and enchantingly beautiful.
Wow - beautiful blooms..... I have a few 'wild" flowers but I find they scattered themselves around my bed instead of staying where i intend them to be...plus i accidently pull some not realizing they are supposed to be there! :) Ya'll have named lots of plants I have never heard of...guess i need to head to the plant files.
Thanks for sharing the lovely photos.
Genna
@ Genna - wildflowers do have a way of wandering around a garden. I was amazed at where some volunteers came up this spring in places on the opposite side of the place, it seems. Some carried by water runoff through one of my beds when we have flooding rains. They are funny. It does help to learn how to identify those weeds.
@ Rebecca - Like Gen I had to look something up just now - had never heard of Sissinghurst but that's it exactly. Gorgeous! When Max died I send her also to the crematory with a small bouquet of white asters, daisies, and a single yellow rose.
I bought some bare root roses this spring at a weird "department" store. The first bud is opening this morning. It appears to be white. :)
The roses were supposed to be "Golden Masterpiece" hybrid tea roses. 3/$10 so I thought what the heck. In addition to the white flower garden I wanted a yellow rose. Would have preferred a yellow knockout but couldn't find one that I felt was affordable.
So the second rose's buds appear to be reddish. :)
The third bush is too small yet to tell.
Max was 14. She was a Lhasa Apso - a bossy old lady trapped in a dog's body.
Christmas Tree Shops:
http://www.christmastreeshops.com/
They've been around for years - started way up north at the outlet stores. LOTS of stuff. I typically forbid myself to go into places like that.
The bugbane is about to bloom (yes black cohosh). It is a magical plant. I'm not sure I have them in the right place. The plants are doing nicely - the flower stems are soooo long and point towards the morning sun.
Well ladies, I must go tend my weeds - trying to do just a little at a time and then come inside and collapse in the a/c.
Stay cool. :)
A.
True story that the wildflowers wander around. I guess they're designed to survive that way but the results are astonishing. Two examples: trilliums. I always thought that they were a tuber or root-based plant that would have to spread by dividing. But they must spread by seed because I have had them completely disappear from some areas . . . and suddenly appear in areas where they could not possibly have been planted, even by a bird. Only some kind of windblown seed.
Also, the third year we were here this weird plant, the green dragon, a type of arisaema, suddenly appeared by the driveway where it had not been before. It is inconspicuous in spring but in fall produces a large hanging bunch of neon-orange berries. I put surveyor flags around the plant to save it and have been hollering at any dog or husband who gets too close. Then I noticed we have about six of them in different places since now I know what to look for: they make this U-shaped branch with a few leaves around it and then this knifelife appendage (the "green dragon" part) beneath. But I KNOW we never got those berries before. I guess birds or possums or the armadillo or raccoons must have distributed them last year, but I find it amazing how they get around.
And of course there are quite a few plants I've been waiting on hand and foot that did NOT manage to survive and spread.
One of the reasons I like native wildflowers is that they don't require much maintenance.
They do look rather weedy until they bloom and some folks don't like that about them.
Oh! I love the arisaema! How lucky for it to just magically appear. LOL - yeah, with critters around you'd have to put construction flags or police tape up to save a plant like that. :)
Found another this morning. Indian Blanket (gaillardia pulchella)
So pretty! I wish I had enough sun for those.
Sun is no problem for me. It's shade that I don't any of.
Maybe one day the trees I planted will make some.
Back to the cyrillas. Today I found that the blooms have turned a golden tan color and are now dropping. So from the time they bud to the time they drop will be about a month.
Thanks for letting me know about the cyrillas. I have planted several magnolias here that have all done well. It seems to me that if magnolias do well so would a cyrilla. I am thinking of planting one in this particular area that gets kind of boggy in the spring.
They like boggy. As long as it doesn't get too cold for too long I think you will have good luck with them. It's worth a try.
More actual weeds coming up than the actual cultivated weeds!!! I have the most gorgeous solidago/goldenrod just beginning to bloom, and I cannot for the life of me tell you which species it is.
Also a delightful white aster with an almost white center. Again - these are seeds I collected when I was working at a native plant botanic garden in MA. I did have labels on most of my packages. I think when I winter-sowed some of these the names/numbers came off as they weathered and I was left not knowing what somethings were.
I'll post pics - maybe one of you smart gardeners can tell me what they are. :D
A.
I have a couple of purple asters blooming and it sure seems awfully early for them. Ordinarily they don't bloom here until late August.
