Winter Weeds, Pt 2

Continuing from last week's post, here are 10 more native wildflowers that, though dried out, are still standing in the middle of winter.

Fertile fronds of the Sensitive Fern

The first is the fruiting stalks of the Sensitive Fern.  While the fronds of this fern are among the first to die back in the fall, these stalks are quite persistent through the winter.


The next image is of Shrubby Cinquifoil.  While not a wildflower per se, it does have a similar appearance in the winter.  Left to their own these small shrubs can form a tangled mass of branches.  Annual removal of about 1/3 of the older branches gives a good balance of flowers, neatness and size.

These dried flowers of Shrubby Cinquifoil
stand above a mass of branches.

The Orange Coneflowers and Black-eyed Susans are classics in the winter landscape.  The Orange Coneflower has spiky, black to dark-brown seed heads.  These look really nice sticking out of the snow, and the seeds provide food for overwintering birds.

Orange Coneflower seed heads are nearly round,

Black-eyed Susan's seed heads are definitely cone-shaped
and are lighter in color than the Orange Coneflower.

Next I have the annual/biennial Black-eyed Susan.  During bloom season the flowers look very similar to the Coneflower, but this species has a laxer habit.  In winter you can see that the light colored seed head is very different.

Wild Petunia after a rare snowfall (this year).

My Wild Petunia is usually crushed under the snow in the winter.  But this year it is still upright.  The dried stems have a silvery cast that is enhanced by the long fine hairs that cover this plant. 

This Blue-stemmed Goldenrod
still has its narrow leaved attached.

Many of the Goldenrods (Solidago ssp.) persist well into winter.  I've captured three species here.  The first is the Blue-stemmed Goldenrod.  This species has flower clusters in the leaf axils all along the stem.  Zig-zag Goldenrod (S. flexicaulis) is another species that also has flowers originating from the leaf axils.  

The second goldenrod I'm showing here is the Seaside Goldenrod.  It has flowers in long terminal sprays.  

The third species is Showy Goldenrod.  This one grow tall and upright with flowers in a terminal plume.  It blooms early in the season, but stays upright through most of the winter.

Seaside Goldenrod blooms later in the season
 and tends to hold its fuzzy white seeds later, as well.

Showy Goldenrod has a strong presence even though
 the flowers are long gone.

Another species that I wanted to show is Stiff Goldenrod (S. rigida), but this early blooming species does not hold up well into the winter.  My plants tend to disappear around the middle of December.

Meadowsweet is lanky spreading shrub that may be difficult to use in a formal landscape.  But it grows under many difficult conditions, blooms all summer and is very attractive to native bees, so I am using it around my house and trying to learn how to tame it.  It also has a nice presence through the winter.

Meadowsweet flowers remain intact all winter.

Swamp Verbena is free-seeding native perennial.  It started in the flower bed and is now growing out of the driveway.  The flowers, borne on little spikes, are rather small considering the overall size of this plant, but I have found that they can be cut back by nearly 1/2 in June and be of a more appropriate size for the garden.

The afternoon sun caught on these Swamp Verbena flower spikes
inspired me to take a closer look at the other plants in my yard this winter.

Now that I've checked out the plants around my house, I'll need to make a trip out to some 'wilder' places to see what's happening.

Under the Norway Maple - Part 2

As the growing season is slowly coming to a close I thought I would revisit the status of the native species I have be evaluating under my Norway Maple.  There have been some improvements and some failures and one plant that I thought I lost has returned in a different spot.  In general many of the plants continuing to grow, only slower and smaller due to competition from the mature Maple.

Maturing berries of Winterthur Viburnum start off
bright green, then turn pink, then finally dark blue.

First the good news.  After 4 years of growing with no berries, I finally got a good crop from my Winterthur Viburnum (Viburnum nudum 'Winterthur').  While it had been slogging along at the edge of the tree canopy, it produced no fruit until I brought in a native form last fall.  This year, with the cross pollination, mature berries were produced for the first time here.

Another plant the seems to be catching on is the Northern Sea Oats (Chasmantheum latifolium) that I moved in last year.  These overwintered and grew fairly well in the shade along the back fence.  I would like this grass to grow up and obscure the chain-link fence.  A new addition, that seems to be working out is the Bluestemmed Goldenrod (Solidago caesia).  The native habitat for this plant is in open woods, so at least this plant is used to the shade.



The Northern Sea Oats are doing well along the fence. 
The new Bluestemmed Goldenrod is in full bloom (late September)
and the Witchhazel is just getting started 



The Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum) that I thought had faded away returned in a new spot and looked healthier this year than when it was first planted 4 years ago. 

I transplanted a lot of 2nd year American Bellflowers (Campanulastrum americanum, a biennial) along the back edge of the garden.  These did well though early and mid-summer until they died out after completing their bloom cycle.  The test will be whether new plants return from the seed. 

The biennial Allegheny Vine (Adlumia fungosa) did not come back with any new seedlings this year (unless they were lost in the spreading Virginia Creeper).  A new addition that I thought would work but did not do well was Canada anemone (Anemone canadensis); I will keep a eye out for this next spring.

Successes

Other plants that are expanding are:

The Rosinweed is standing tall while the Smooth Aster
and Showy Goldenrod have flopped forward toward the sun.

American Pennyroyal (Hedeoma pulegioides, an annual returning from seed), Smooth Aster (Symphyotrichum laeve), Heartleaf Aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium), Rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium), Showy Goldenrod (Solidago speciosa), Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia, now the dominant grond cover), and Wafer Ash (Ptelea trifoliata).

I should give a shout out to the Rosinweed.  While it does not have the prettiest flowers, it was in bloom all summer.  Then, I cut the spent blooms back to some new flower buds and got the second flush shown in the photo.  (Cutting back when no buds are present just leaves you with a leafy stem; I tried that last year.)

Plants holding their own:

  

Christmas Fern, Bellwort and Wild Bleeding Heart
have looked good all season.

 Male Fern (Dryopteris filix-mas), Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), Rosey sedge (Carex rosea), Alumroot (Heuchera villosa),  Black Huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata), Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), Lowbush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium), Dutchman's Pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla), Largeflower bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla), Wild Bleeding Heart (Dicentra eximia), Witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana )

Fading or gone:

Barren Strawberry (Waldsteinia fragariodes) has disappeared and the Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) was down to only two sprigs in the spring before it disappeared.  Hairy Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum pubescens) has been in this area for 4 years but it now seems to be in decline.  I put in a new one this fall and am hoping for its return.

Plants that should work, planned for next season:

Last year I planned to put in Labrador violet (Viola labradorica) and Maple-leaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) but didn't.  I'll try to get those for next spring.  I will will also give the Canada Anemone another shot.  I also have some Large-leaf Aster (Eurybia macrophylla) that I should move over, seeing as it usually does well in dry shade.

In addition to using plants that are strong competitors that can get their share of moisture there are some maintenance practices that will help the understory plants survive under the Norway Maple (or other mature tree for that matter).  Limbing up and thinning the canopy to let in more sunlight helps a lot. Also, new plants should be irrigated deeply the first year to get them established, as well as under droughty conditions (mid-summer). I have a rain barrel with a special low pressure soaker hose to help with this.  Returning the leaf mulch to the understory area helps to build the soil.

A Weekend in Mid-Coast Maine

My wife and I are fortunate enough to have a friend who invites us up to their cottage in Mid-coast Maine at the end of the summer. For the botanist in me, this is a native plant wonderland, especially since I am more used to seeing invasives and exotics in my suburban landscape habitat. I would love to have this kind of native plant diversity around my home.

  

Most of the easily identified plants were late summer and fall blooming species; however I could pick out some early bloomers, like bluebead, Clintonia borealis. Up around the cottage and the nearby woods I found a variety of goldenrods, including silverrod, and asters and drifts of hairy Solomon’s seal, wintergreen, sweetfern, and maple-leaved viburnum.

One goldenrod I particularly like is the Blue-stemmed Goldenrod, Solidago caesia, since it grows well in shady locations – a good way to add some brightness to an otherwise dark location.

Mixed in with the Viburnum were seedlings of striped maple, Acer pensylvanicum, which has similarly shaped leaves, but they are about 4 times larger.

 

Along the gravel access road I spotted some indian cucumber root, Medeola virginiana, which I think is more striking in fruit than when it is actually in bloom. The plant shown is about 18" tall.  Also along the road were masses of witchhazel, Hamamelis virginiana, which I had never noticed before. This is probably due to my learning more about what plants look like, than would be the sudden appearance of full-sized shrubs. Witchhazel is one of the latest blooming native shrubs, here it is mid-September and the flowers were just beginning to open. In colder climates these shrubs bloom while the foliage is still attached, in warmer places the flowers may persist until after leaf drop.

A little deeper in the woods I identified a new plant for me, round-leaved dogwood, Cornus rugosa. At first I though it was another viburnum, since it had opposite pairs of leaves, but the leaves were decidedly un-toothed, so I dug a little deeper into the field guides. This looks like it could be a nice understory shrub to grow in the shade under pines.

Next to the pond near the cottage there are thickets of winterberry holly, meadowsweet and maleberry (Lyonia ligustrina). It took me a long time to ‘key out’ the maleberry, since I had never seen it before. This shrub grows in moist and sandy places and has flowers similar to blueberries. I originally had it as different shrub, leatherleaf, but some things about the description in the guide just didn’t seem right, particularly the dried flower clusters. So I kept at it using some other guides. It is ‘dangerous’ to use just one key or a limited set of observations when identifying unfamiliar plants on your own. If you are conflicted about a plant ID, you may have it wrong. This process can be tedious, but going through the details helps me remember the plant better than just reading what it is on a tag.



Popham State Park

We also made a trip to the beautiful sandy beach at Popham State Park, not far from Bath, ME. Of course I went in search of wildflowers. Here you see the aptly named seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens) growing right out to the edge of the rocks. I also found some stunted New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) growing on the rocks a little closer to land.

'Cottage Garden'

Back at the cottage, there is some room among all these wild native plants for a small ‘cottage garden’. I was told that it took all summer for these sunflowers to reach maturity, growing from seed, but they made it none the less. Every time I visit here I learn some new native plants. Maybe next year I will grab my fern guide and venture a little deeper into the woods to see what’s growing there.