Two-fold Questions

It seems like this forum is most active in spring/summer when we're most busy in our gardens. We're in single digits much of the time now in the north with frozen ground which means no more digging. I miss the camaraderie of "like" people - the opinions, advice and personal photos (love them). If we can't live it here, can we share past or present experience? I'm curious about the answers to two questions:

*** What's your favorite volunteer(s) (if any, because mulch probably won't allow any)?

*** What native plant(s) (growing in your area) do you love?

Favorite volunteers: Amaranth, Sunflowers, Husker Red Penstemon, Baptisia, and Amsonia

Natives: Lady slipper, Lupine, Joe Pye and Morrel Mushrooms (a fungus, but I love them).

Got to include a photo of an amaranth volunteer that grew this year - not one, but many. People that stopped by always asked what the plant was, it was that showy. I don't remember ever having any in our garden so it was a double treat and mystery. I like hearing the answers of others because for many answers I think, 'yes, forgot about that one'. Ah gardening, don't you love it?

My favorite volunteers are digitalis - love them....I let them come up where ever I find them growing in the garden.

Natives - I don't have any of these, but I love to see the wild dogwood growing in the woods and on the hills...

What a great way to spend the Winter reminiscing while we wait for Spring. We've had several frosts and our daytime temps the past few days have only been in the 40's. My pic attached is from last June. At the bend of my main garden is an area affectionately called the "wild child" garden where plants are left to self-sow. This year we had a nice crop of volunteer Sunflowers and Cosmos. In my small part-sun garden, several Columbines reseeded. One I think is a native. Among my fav plants to attract butterflies and bees that freely reseed are Monardas and Agastaches. A. Golden Jubilee produced many seedlings and Tutti Fruitti had a few. Russian Sage bundled up in the pic to keep it from toppling over produced a few seedlings but not as many as I would like to have had. The dark plant is Red Huskers Penstemon I winter sowed two years ago, still waiting for babies.

Beautiful photos....maithyme and Fruity...

It is a great way to wait for Spring -

Here in NW Florida things multiply like mad. I'd have to say my favorite volunteers are the Passifloras - they run underground and spread by seeds. My favorite wild plant in my area has to be the beauty berry bush - just gorgeous. My MOST favorite multiplying native is our wild pitcher plant - we have them all over our area - look like pools of liquid yellow - so pretty! Our native Lupine is gorgeous, too - blanketing the vacant land with a sea of purple.

Wow two great questions maithe. Natives, can't wait til spring to see my field of goodies, many I still don't know yet (need a wildflower guide I guess), I start the season with Mertensia (Bluebells) acres of them fill the feild. Then I get wild lupines, coreopsis, penstemon, 2 varieties of asters, Yucca, liatris, geranium, petalostemon or dalea, and a couple of Indian Paintbrushes., and maybe my favorite is all the wild roses ( they are all over the neighborhood and fill the ditches alnong side of the road) the fragrance is amazing. My favorite reseeders: ooh gosh got a bunch of those also and love 'em: Wild sunflowers which I also grow in the cultivated area, cosmos, johnny jump ups, penstemon Red Rocks, coreopsis grandiflora, scabiosa ochroleuca (yellow) and a tall variety in blue and white, gypsophila repens, geum Mrs. Bradshaw, penstemon rocky mt blue, dianthus zing, hesperis matronalis, linum perenne (blue flax), centaurea montana, centaurea montana Amathyst Snow, centaurea machrocephalla, Veronica spicata Sight seeing Blue, gypsophila paniculata, malva (think is Party Girl), alcea, epalobium angustifolium (fire weed), daucus carota tall queen anne's lace, valariana officinalis, antirrhinum (snaps, rocket reds), osteospurmum in orange and yelllow, salvia g. and nemerosa, dracocephalum (an annual), knautia macedonica, lupine, ammi visagana, anthemis, another veronica that blooms in spring only, agastache, ratibida c.( which actually came from the wild area), Salvia Claryssa Mix, nicotiana x. sandersae Fragrant Cloud, datura metaloides, lavendula, lysimachia atropurpea, papaver o. pink and orange, rudbeckia an annual form, alyssum, larkspur, physostegia v., salvia sclarea turkestanica, verbascum p., and zinnia, And time to reseed papaver somniferums again. My lilium tigrinums would reseed if the deer would let them bloom, lol. In shrubs I have caryopteris Blue Mist Spiareas. Wow, can hardly wait til spring. Burry here too, passing rain or flurries tonight.
Kay.. just love the passifloras, planted 2 caruleas just a few weeks ago and hoping they make it through the winter as they are at the northern end of the zone. Do you have the fragrant varieties? And have you ever had their fruit? Kathy.

I love annual poppies ,and Moth Mullin

What a wonderful thread maithyme, gives us all a chance to dream aloud.
I'm enjoying reading about everyones choices but will have to think a bit to figure out which ones I will chose in those 2 catagories.

So many of the choices sounded enticing. I would love to see the native wild pitcher pitcher plants forming liquid pools of gold,
so poetic KayJones.
Also wwkathy's fields sound exciting.
I hope we get to see photos in the future,

Pretty garden fruitofthevine.

Such nice flowers and gardens to see in December!

Lupines win here. They self-seed but the seeds don't fly all over and remain in the same area.

Here are some pictures of pitcher plants in a lagoon near my home:

Another shot of the sea of pitcher plants:

This is a shot of the red and white pitcher plants that I grow - they grow in colonies in lagoons north east of my town:

There are lagoons where the pitcher plants are more populated that the shots above, but they were farther away from where I was standing, so I just captured these that were close to me.

Pirl - I have yet to grow one successful lupine. And you have a sea of it. Lovely.

Thank you. This past spring I had 159 volunteers to plant!

I dont have Lupine Luck either.
Pirl ,those look fantastic.

Thanks.

When the chipping is done, in the back by the six compost bins, seeds just fall to the ground. This was taken 4/28/06 in the chipping area and you can see just some of the emerging lupines.

You are so lucky. I tried Lupines 2 years in a row and not any re-seeded.

I'm new to this so the only volunteers around here are the yucca in the back yard that has run wild for 15 years and the foxtails. I'm a fan of the california poppy. All poppys really. And I love Joshua trees.

Monkey, are you talking about foxtails the plant (erumerus, desert candles), if so WOW. Love them.
I got tons of seed for dark red lupines, am thinking when some of the snow melts running out and planting some. Last year my lupines got a nasty bug on the and defoliated all three plants. This next spring I Will be ready with a can of bug spray at first sight of them. Not willing to share with the naughty bugs,lol. Here's my purples from the year before. Kathy

No, I'm talking about the weeds that get in dogs ears and cause nothing but trouble. They are insane here. No matter what they come back. And back. And back.....If I was growing them I would be a master in them.

It's fun reading the posts and looking at pictures of flowers from across the US. Often I have to google plants while reading because I'm intrigued by names or descriptions others talk about that I've never seen or heard of before.

Carolyn, foxglove is beautiful and I've never had one reseed, you're lucky. Fruit, I love the name "wild child" and your photo fills me with warm fuzzies (needed on 20 degree days).

Kay how lucky your passifloras spread! I have a red that I dug before the frost and hope survives the winter. The pitcher plants are really interesting too.

Kathy, your posts actually make me tired just thinking about all the planting and upkeep. I think I have alot to care for until I read you. But with all the acres maybe the plants tend themselves, true? Don't forget, I'd like some of those plants come spring.

Pirl I love lupine. How many colors are there? They grow wild here but I've only seen a few stands growing in the ditches up north. There must be at least 5 or 6 colors. Ge don't know what a moth mullin is but after reading about the mystic green phlox in another thread I don't want to pass up on another stunner. Hmmmm, DG is so bad. I'm suppose to be writing Christmas cards and wrapping gifts not goggling plant mysteries.

Monkey those foxtails look like the grass that grows here that I like to chew on. I had no idea that anything like that could grow in dogs ears. That's awful.

In my sandy 'soil', the Passifloras spread by underground runners, all OVER my yard!

mai - The typical lupines are in jewel tones - purple, yellow, pink, and many others. Often they have a secondary color mixed with the first. Here you can see there are darker pink areas along with the basic pink. Yellow with purples, white with purples and violets, are common.

The darker pink in the above lupine shows up much more after cropping the photo.

So pretty. Love it with the columbine.

Maith...remind me come spring, ok? Go to Thompson & Morgan Seeds or TMSeeds .com and get a catalog. This one is great for pix and descriptions of thousands of flowering plants. Roots and Rhizomes is another great catalog. Heck you might even find some goodies you want. LOL. I love contributing to the addiction and sharing it with others. (teehee). Later , Kathy.

I have two favorite natives.

First (I'll post the second one in another posting so I can add a photo)....I have grown to love Virginia Creeper. I've been letting it grow in some of my beds under certain conditions if it just happens to appear out of nowhere...and it does quite often!

Here's a photo I took this fall with some growing on the barn...

Next is Ironweed. I don't let this grow in my beds because it gets so big, but there's plenty growing in the field and by the pond. I love it. It's a reminder that summer is nearly done (due to its blooming time).

I took this one of ironweed back by the pond. There's a large batch of it there in dappled shade.

Iron weed is pretty while it's in bloom, then it looks awful. That's a pretty patch you show.

I agree. Until it blooms it's pretty blah! I think Joe Pye Weed is related to it isn't it? I do love Joe Pye Weed though, even when not blooming. It has better looking leaves, etc.

I've tried JPW twice, with no success - sand isn't its 'soil' of choice.

LOL...oh, I guess not. It does like my thick clay soil though. I guess I should stop complaining about my heavy clay. Many plants I love also love this soil.

The lupine is awesome, my daughter grows huge plants and I'm still trying and trying...........the 2 new ones bought last spring were still healthy before the frost. Kathy, I'll check out those sites---there are lots of plants out there worth growing and I know about so few.

HC, I also love ironweed. It's one of the latest blooming perennials here and I cut back half the plant in summer so we get a double flush. I tried to take some to share this summer and it was so rootbound I had trouble. Yet it's not invasive and it's still a prolific bloomer. I like it as a background plant.

This guy likes ironweed too.

Ironweed spreads pretty well down here. I'd be afraid to plant it in a bed unless it was on the edge of the woods or something. At the moment I don't have any beds like that which can support really tall plants like ironweed...or at least not one that can spread as quick as ironweed.

I don't know if ironweed and Joe Pye are related but it looks nice with valerian. JP grows in my garden that was strictly sand until it was amended with compost. Queen of the Prairie grows right next to them and provide a nice backdrop for a garden bench. The JP is such a butterfly magnet that the yard was constantly alive with monarchs and swallowtails all fall. I loved it.

Joe Pye doesn't grow for me - neigher does Q of the P - we have our own unique wildflowers that do well in our sand, but not these. I buy them from a local nursery and they just fade away - bummer!

Would it help to add peat moss or something like that to the area you want to plant in?...so it doesn't drain so fast.

I can try sending you a root or some seed if you like next spring. The seed looks kinda like a wood tick with a feather attached to it. It might work starting from seed and if not, nothing ventured............