Early Summer Blooms

Bees visit American Bellflower in both sunny
and shady locations

Now that we are getting into the hot days of summer, blooming of many native plants and the associated pollinator activity are picking up.  Here at home I saw my first Monarch Butterfly in many years.  You'll have to take my work for it, since it was gone by the time I got my camera.

One plant that has been blooming for awhile is the American Bellflower, Campanulastrum americanum.  This is particularly attractive to a medium sized black bee, probably a Miner Bee.  This plant blooms nearly as well in the shade as it does in the sun.

This Miner Bee is the primary visitor to the Bellflower

This Miner Bee draws nectar from the open face of the flower.  To do this it lands on the stamen and style of the flower.  Apparently the flower's stigma is situated to receive pollen from the bee as it makes its approach to the flower.








Nearby, on the sunny side of the driveway the Echinacea is in full bloom.  These attract a variety of pollinators, such as this Green Sweat Bee.  The Meadowsweet, Spiraea latifoia, has finished it's first round of blooms.  This year I cut some of the plants back significantly to keep the growth in check.  (I'm pretty sure it will put out a second growth.)  So for now the bees will be visiting other flowers for pollen and nectar.

It's interesting to note that with all the activity on the native flowers, I have seen very few insects visiting the flowers on my nearby shrub rose (other than a couple of Japanese Beetles).

Another early bloomer in the dry shade of my Norway Maple is Rosin Weed, Silphium integrifolium.  I chose this species of of Silphium because it does not get as big as the more familiar Cup Plant, S. perfoliatum.  This plant has slowly been expanding its mass, but I have not seen it show up in other parts of the garden.

A Hover Fly monitoring a cluster of Rosinweed blooms.

The flowers on this particular plant tend to form on the shady side.
This makes for a difficult photograph.

A new native annual that I'm trying out this year is Partridge Pea, Chamaecrista fasciculata.  This plant will grow in poor, dryish soils.  So far I'm favorably impressed.  One grouping that I planted near a highway is growing and blooming, despite receiving no additional moisture, other than the small amount of rain this summer.  Like its relative the Sensitive Plant, its leaves will fold up when the plant is handled roughly.  The leaves also fold up when it gets dark.  I wonder if this behavior helps it to survive under dry conditions (by limiting transpiration).

Some drifts are still intact, like the lavender-color Beebalm, Monarda fistulosa;
the orange Butterflyweed has blown over from another part of the
Wildflower Meadow at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

A Monarch Butterfly passing over
some Beebalm and Hoary Vervain

Over at Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, MA, there is a good sized native wildflower meadow installed about 5 years ago.  Here I have seen many more butterflies than in my urban backyard.  This meadow features a number of native grasses as well as many showy flowering plants.  The original planting had the plants arranged in drifts, but the management plan is to let the plants move around as they will, to create a dynamic garden with plants finding there best locations.

In another part of the cemetery I noticed this Bottlebrush Buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, in full bloom.  While native to the Southeastern US, this shrub is very attractive to the bees up in the Northeast.  I spent some time watching how the bees interacted with the flower.  It was more like a mugging than a gentle approach to sip some nectar.  The bee grabs onto to the outside of the flower and extracts nectar from between the petals and the calyx.  In the process the bee's abdomen rubs all over the anthers and the stigma, thus achieving pollination of the flower.  

This bee on the Buckeye flower is about 1.5" long.

Other flowers are about to open up here, like the Scarlet Sage, Woodland Sunflower and Prairie Coneflower, so the show has only just begun.

Winter Weeds, Part 1

On nice winter days it is fun and interesting to take a walk through some of the wilder areas to see what plants are still standing.  An excellent guide book for this is Weeds in Winter by Lauren Brown.   This book has all kinds of useful information for winter plant ID in New England.  There’s a glossary of terms, a dichotomous key for plants described in the book and some really great illustrations of the winter appearance of these plants.  

Since this winter has been so mild in southern New England, I was able to find many of these plants right around my house.  These normally would have been crushed under piles of snow.  In fact, I found so many of them I need to split this post into two parts.  Most of these photos were taken at the end of January this year.  Here is the first of two installments of photos of my winter weeds.  

This Prairie Aster retains its strong
stems through the winter

These photos are roughly in alphabetical order.  I had already decided on the order when I remembered the name changes for the asters, so Symphyotrichum is coming first.

Aster can be difficult to ID in the winter.
Fortunately, I remembered which is which in this case.

Many of these native asters have long lasting stems.  For example, the 'bush' on the far right in the topmost photo is a Prairie Aster.

The Bigleaf Aster still has some of its seeds.

When I came across this old stem of the American Bellflower I was not sure what I was looking at.  After I few minutes I remember what had been growing in that location and narrowed it down to this species.  One advantage of using the plants around the house is that ID is a lot easier than when working in the field.

American Bellflower has distinctive seed capsules.

Sweet Pepper Bush looks like a tangle of branches in winter.  Closer examination of the older branches shows that it has exfoliating bark.  It is more easily identified by its flower spikes that stay on through the winter.

The long styles of the pistil are retained
on these dried Sweet Pepper Bush flowers.

I usually don't see the Pink Tickseed in winter.  It's growing out of the driveway and is usually covered with snow.  On close examination you can see the narrow little leaves have already started coming up.

Pink Tickseed is only 6-8" tall.

The new buds on this Sweetfern are beginning to swell.
The hairs on the stem really show up in the afternoon light.

The low angle of the sun really enhances the appearance of the stems and spent flowers of these plants.  This is particularly true for the taller plants like these River Oats.

The seeds of the River Oats are shed
slowly over the coarse of the winter.

Purple Coneflower is one of the easier plants to identify.  The old flowers retain their cone-shape even thought the seeds are long gone, either eaten by birds or scattered in the wind.

Seeds of the Purple Coneflower are all gone now

Even though it's dried up American Pennyroyal
still has its minty scent.

The last plant in this post is the American Pennyroyal.  This low growing annual is usually buried under snow there is nothing left of it when the snow melts.  The dried calyxes are arranged in whorls around the stem.  These are much easier to see now that all the leaves are gone.

Well pregame is nearly over, so it's time to close down the computer and start watching the Super Bowl.

Go Pats!!!!

What comes after June? Native Blooms for the 4th of July

When I changed the calendar over from June to July I felt a little sad because it is really too late to put in any new plants in the ground for the season. Of course, I really should have finished all that at the beginning of June. But then I started to look around the garden and found that many of the native plants I have were just starting to bloom. For some, I think they are 2-3 weeks ahead of time due to the warm and sunny spring we had this year in the Boston area. Here is a round-up of my native plants that are in bloom at the beginning of July.

Winecups, Callirhoe involucrata, was one my first North American natives that I put in. The first time I saw it was during a wildflower photography class I took in the Ft. Worth area. This native to the west-central US, has settled nicely into a sunny spot in front of my house. In this photo it is backed up by a clump of Northern Sea Oats, with their newly formed seed stalks.

The Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, shown here was grown from wild seed that I got from NEWFS. These plants show quite a bit of variation in the blossoms and sizes of the plants. For me, I like the surprise of finding an unexpected flower, or plant, in the garden.

Whorled Rosinweed, Silphium trifoliatum, is a very unfortunate name for this tough native perennial. It is slightly smaller than the more familiar and more fortunately named Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum). I have had these plants growing within the dripline of a Norway Maple for 3-4 years and they are multiplying, that’s a tough plant!

Big-Leafed Aster, Aster macrophyllus (now Euribia macrophylla) grows well in dry shade and will spread by seed and underground runners. My colony started as a single plant and is now beginning to dominate the space. I think this one is blooming several weeks early this year. It provides some interest in what can sometimes be a very drab location. Another similar native plant for dry shade is the White Wood Aster, but that doesn’t bloom until fall.

  

Pink Tickseed, Coreopsis rosea, can be tricky to grow. This colony moved from the border to some cracks in the driveway and has been going strong for over 5 years. I tried moving some back into ‘good’ soil but the plants couldn’t handle the competition. I likes moist soil, so maybe there is runoff being channeled under the asphalt.

Wild Petunia, Ruellia humilis, will bloom for at least 2 months starting in late-June. It can survive dry conditions in poor soil, but it is not a strong competitor when mixed with other plants in good soil.

The next three plants are from my Native Annuals Experiment.  One is a return from seed and the other two are new for me. 

 

Beach Sunflower, Helianthus debilis, has retuned from seed from last year’s plants. This annual sunflower is a cultivar called ‘Pan’. 

Lacy Phacelia, Phacelia tanacetifolia, is an annual from the southwestern deserts. While it is reported to tolerate hot dry conditions, our recent heat wave has cooked at least one plant (3 weeks with no rain can be tough). These plants are recommended as an agricultural cover crop and as a great nectar source.  This one is only 6" tall, but it normally grows to 3' tall.  There are precautions about not letting it go to seed, as this species can get weedy.

 Annual Indian blanket, Gaillardia pulchella, is from one of the seed packets I got at the Wildflower Center in Austin. Compared to the hybrid and perennial Blanket Flowers this one appears to have a more relaxed habit.