From commentor Mike S:
Today I’m sharing some of my pics of native plants flowering in our garden in southeastern Pennsylvania from the last few years. We grow so many plants and I have so many thousands of pictures of flowers (both native and not) that I’ve taken over time that it’s impossible to pick the “best” one of any species.
Up until COVID cutbacks I wrote and illustrated a weekly newspaper column in my local paper about nature/natural history; especially birds, native plants and insects, so I had some real use for some of these pictures, but now I’ve just been taking them for fun and maybe a few Zoom presentations for local garden and native plant clubs. Anyway, I’ve pulled a few I like of plants that grow well in our garden to brighten up the beginning of winter for you all with some thoughts of the next growing season. I’m including a little info below if you want to go beyond the eye-candy.
At top: Wild Senna (Senna marylandica) being visited and buzz-pollinated by a Common Eastern Bumblebee (Bombus impatiens). The flowers of this species produce pollen inside tubular anthers and only a few insects, like local bumblebees, have the ability and instinct to vibrate the flower with their thoracic muscles to shake the pollen out so they can take it home to feed their babies. This exclusionary adaptation helps their pollen reach the correct destination and not be wasted on little insects that can’t do a good job.
Green-headed Coneflower ‘Herbst Sonne’. Our front yard is a meadow of tall native wildflowers and grasses. One of the stalwarts is one that was unappreciated in this country (i.e. weed-wacked and sprayed when growing along roadsides), but when taken to Europe a German gardener selected one and named it. Then it became popular here. Although many people say it’s too tall for their garden a 5 to 8 feet, I like it and it isn’t the tallest flower in the garden either!
Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) is less well know than its scarlet-colored cousin Bee-balm (M.didyma) but I like having them both in our garden. Hummingbirds go to the red one and this species is visited by hummingbird-moths, bees and butterflies which is fine by me. If I could give some plants a new common name, I would change this genus to Crown-flowers, because that is what I think of when I look at them!
Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia) is another tall yellow member of the daisy family that is popular with pollinators. Botanically oriented people would call this and the coneflower DYCs for damn yellow composites. And those of us in the east don’t have the huge number that grow out west to worry about identifying!
Most people don’t realize we have a native wisteria here in eastern North America, but do. Wisteria fruticosa. It is a lovely, if not quite as exuberant, vine as the common Chinese and Japanese Wisterias of horticulture. The flower clusters are smaller than the Asian species which are now becoming invasive in the woodlands around here…
To Be Continued
**********
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week? What went down in your gardens, this past year?
satby
Great pictures and commentary, looking forward to the next installment!
We’re about two weeks away from the official start of winter, but we’ve had several freezes already. The garden is pretty done for the season, but I scored two bags (about 10 lbs each) of used coffee grounds from a local coffee shop to mix in with the dried leaves in my compost bin. Both Starbucks and Caribou offer used grounds free to gardeners, so I always grab a bag if available when I’m grocery shopping. Hoping by spring to have some good compost for the flower beds.
Geminid
@satby: Coffee grounds are acidic, and I’ve seen them recommended for acid loving plants like blueberries. So don’t forget lime, which besides buffering acid is full of calcium, a plant nutrient. Another way to feed calcium to your plants is to apply gypsum, which is a ph neutral compound of calcium and sulphur, another plant nutrient.
NotMax
Okay, it’s not gardening and it’s also a few days early, but seeing as Sunday morning threads tend to being a repository and safe harbor for cute….
Palindrome
DYC! I’m stealing that. We have a Queen’s Crown and Kings Crown here in Colorado – I think they’re Rhodiola and they look a bit like your Monarda.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: I was thinking the same but looked it up to be sure. The Oregon State University says they are not:
A lot of plants (looking at you tomatoes) like their soil on the acidic side. I was battling blossom end rot for years before I figured that out. I started adding an acidifier and voila! My green zebra plants were BER free. The Mushroom Baskets still had some tho, I guess they like it really acidic.
ETA: from the same page:
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: “I got…socks.”
WereBear
@satby: Cool! I love composting in place with coffee grounds. I also used to add a banana peel to each new rose when I dug the hole.
Also, HEADS UP, I will have a Kitty guest post at noon today. But pertinent to all petlovers!
Baud
Pretty pictures.
MazeDancer
@NotMax: Very, very cute. Would have been cuter if included live shots of performer, but still very cute.
Love the tour, Mike S. Maybe you could give us all one of your Zoom chats in the Spring.
raven
@NotMax: Diggs is in The Good Lord Bird as Fredrick Douglas.
p.a.
Nice shots. I was pruning back my rose for winter, an old rambler, really a mess. Cut back the woodies as they don’t produce flowers, and had a cut piece in my hand about to throw it in the waste bag, when I saw movement. A tiny bee/wasp wriggled out of the stem. Looked at the other remaining uncut woody stems. What I thought were vascular holes were mostly chewed out winter headquarters/nurseries for the whatevers. Goddamnit☺️ Will have to wait for spring to prune further. My chain link fence has hollow vinyl privacy slats running through it, and I’ve seen for years wasps using the hollows as nurseries in warm weather.
OzarkHillbilly
Thanx for the pics Mike S, but even more thanx for the info.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Huh. I guess I misinterpreted the coffee grounds blueberry recommendation. I live in an area where the soils tend to be acidic, and soils generally need a little lime, or a lot. Garden gypsum was expensive at garden centers, but I recently saw some fairly cheap gypsum at Lowes. Local garden guru Andre Viette says that gypsum is a “flocculant,” which sounds obscene but just means that gypsum helps break up the red clay that is prevalent in Virginia.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
I saw that last night and loved it.
Immanentize
@NotMax: thanks! I already sent it forward.
Immanentize
For a number of reasons, including a pulled back and sloth, I never finished raking all the leaves from under the perimeter bushes. There are plenty of coffee grounds at my house! So I will be making an excellent big coffee/leaf compost pile. If the sloth leaves the spare bedroom….
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: I think I had always just assumed they were acidic. Decided to look it up to get the particulars and was a little surprised to find the opposite.
It took me a good 3 or 4 years to turn the clay/dolomite matrix I have here into garden soil by adding 4″ of compost every year, and one can tell the difference just by stepping into the garden. Even my non gardening SiL noticed the change immediately just by walking on it. Because of all our oaks I had also assumed my soil was slightly acidic. Finally got a soil testing kit last year, figuring it needed nitrogen or calcium or phosphates or etc. Turned out it was good on all nutrients but was solidly on the base side of the scale.
Last year I added acidifier only at the plants. I don’t think it was quite enough. I’m gonna spread some over the entire garden this winter and test it come spring to see how it did.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: It’s good to wait until the kid gets home to start these chores. It’ll make him know he’s really home. :-)
Immanentize
@rikyrah: good morning!
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Definitely part of my thinking. But he has begged off any involuntary servitude until Dec. 12 when his last and hardest final is due.
Considering the investment….
debbie
I love, love, love wisteria, but don’t have to deal with its consequences. This homeowner let it grow into a very large pine tree which has all but killed it.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Is he at school or with you?
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Punchy
Anyone got the latest on WA’s eradication attempts w/r/t the murder hornet? Last I heard they collected/destroyed a ginormous nest wearing near-spacesuits, but that couldnt bee (heh) the only nest, right? Or was it?
charluckles
This year I am giving a lot of digital gift certificates for seeds. And seed catalogs. Such a wonderful distraction at this time. A big thank you to the commenter here who first recommended Baker Creek. The seeds from Japan are going to have a lot of appeal for a chunk of my family.
Immanentize
@debbie: he’s home now. His Uni. wisely planned to send all students home the Friday before Thanksgiving. All his finals are online or take home.
debbie
@Immanentize:
I’m glad the school was able to stay safe enough so he could stay there as long as he did.
Geminid
@charluckles: Calendula are good seeds to get. They consistently reseed themselves, and they produce good cut flowers. The seeds look like little dried caterpillars. I read that the Romans named the plant calendula because they flowered through the calendar. My friend Joan’s calendula are still blooming.
tybee
@OzarkHillbilly:
I was under the impression that BER was due to a calcium deficiency.
OzarkHillbilly
@Punchy: I read an update that reported there were several nearly mature Queens in the nest and they are assuming there are more nests out there.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thankfully I — my tomatoes, that is, — had less BER this past summer, but planning ahead for next year, what kind of acidifier did you use
ETA: Great pix and descriptions. Thank you, Mike S.!
FelonyGovt
Good morning! Beautiful photos.
My camellias have finally started flowering. My determinate tomato plant has one last green tomato but also a lot of new, small green leaves and even some flowers so I’m going to keep it around and see if I get more tomatoes. Everything is new and exciting and daunting for a novice gardener like me!
OzarkHillbilly
@tybee: It is, but if your soil is too base the plant can’t take it in very efficiently. It took me until 2018 to finally find something to give me that little tidbit of information. Before then I kept adding calcium and more calcium in various forms and never getting better results.
MagdaInBlack
Damned Pearl the Squirrel woke me up, sitting on balcony rail bitchin’ for breakfast. I have created a monster =-)
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: Espoma Organic Soil Acidifier. bought at Lowes.
OzarkHillbilly
The beauty of starling murmurations – in pictures .
Dorothy A. Winsor
This video of ducks changing their minds made me laugh. I wanted to be sure TaMara didn’t miss it.
MagdaInBlack
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I love that clip. My ducks did that =-)
Eric U.
Anyone northerners leave oregano growing outside over the winter? The internet tells me it’s possible, and it’s going okay so far.
OzarkHillbilly
@Eric U.: I do it here in Misery.
Dorothy A. Winsor
And here’s a video I just took of the gingerbread village in my building’s entry hall.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
Thanks Everyone, I’m glad you’re enjoying the flowers.
@MazeDancer: A zoom chat on native plants and other gardening would be fun. I’m going to doing Zoom presenttations for a Master Naturalist class this coming spring too. That will be a change from in person classes with lots of feedback!
@p.a.: Quite a few native bees like to hollow out stems like that. You may have either Yellow-faced Bees (Hyleus species) or Small Carpenter bees (Ceritina species).
zhena gogolia
SNL did put Cecily Strong on the case:
youtube.com/watch?v=34-JCkVuKJ8&feature=youtu.be
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: I saw a jug of “Mater Magic” this year at Walmart. The label claimed that it solved any and all tomato nutritional deficiencies, and that it was organic. I could not resist the name and the tomato-shaped packaging. I don’t even grow tomatoes so I gave it to a friend.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks! I’ve used some of their other products and I’ll give this a try with my ‘maters next summer.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: Who could resist such a euphonious product?
HRA
@Eric U.: I have been doing it for many years here in WNY.
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: This year I mixed a handful into the soil of each plant site. Definitely made a difference. As I said above, I’m going to broadcast over the whole of the garden this winter and then test the soil come spring. If it’s still on the base side (maters like 6-6.8 ph the best) I’ll mix a fistful in again for each plant.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That is the best gingerbread anything I’ve ever seen!
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Loved it!
oldgold
Last year I used coffee grounds in West of Eden. When the Blacked Eyed Susans sneezed their eyes did not close. The Sunflowers were so wired they were picking up AM radio. The slugs were as busy as bees. The snails were speed sliming across the garden.
Next year I am using decaf.
Kristine
I’ve been adding coffee grounds to my compost bin for years, as well as the unbleached paper filters.
It’s snowing ? here in NE Illinois. It’s melting on hard surfaces and probably won’t stick around on the grass for long, but still.
This is the first substantial dusting of the season. We usually have a couple measurable snows by this point, but not this year.
Miss Bianca
@oldgold: hee hee, those were fun images for my second cup of coffee (decidedly not moving quickly here at the Mountain Hacienda this morning!).
Kristine
I love the native flowers. We have wild bergamot in NE Illinois too. The state park was filled with it this year.
I had red and pink varieties in my yard. Bees seemed to like them, but the hummingbirds preferred the cardinal flowers.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve been meaning to test my soil. Unamended soil around here tends to be clay or sandy, and both alkaline. I’ve been amending over the past several years and it would be useful to know what else might be needed.
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Carefully waves coffee mug from NM!
stinger
Thanks for the pics and especially the commentary. Despite their invasiveness, you can still purchase Asian wisteria — I’d love to find a source for native wisteria. The same for honeysuckle.
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa: How are you doing? Man, I miss going to NM. That little meet-up we had with Cheryl R feels like a thousand years ago!
trollhattan
@debbie:
Mine is going dormant, but dreams of spring and renewing the continual attacks on my house. It’s a fraught relationship with it providing pretty fragrant flowers one week/year and some privacy from next door and me providing something big and expensive for it to try and destroy.
While my belief is I hold the power to end its life, I’m not sure that’s true. Can one remove a wisteria?
debbie
@trollhattan:
My mother finally did. She had a wisteria trained over the pergola over her patio. Despite all the bees and wasps it attracted, she was fine with it until she pulled off a small tendril and some brick came with it. From there, it was war. It was like a close friend had betrayed her.
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: That was a fun gathering and I hope someday we can do it again! I am now recovered from campaign exhaustion, which had me flattened and emulating slothhood for several weeks. We’re doing well under the circumstances. Hope you are too!
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@stinger: If you would like some seeds of our native Trumpet Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) I’m happy to share some. It grows easily from seed sown outdoors in the winter. Anne Laurie has my contact info. get in touch via her. I don’t know of a source for the native wisteria offhand. Ours came from a small local nursery that is now out of business. Our single plant doesn’t set seeds, at least not yet.
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa: OK, I know it’s the garden thread, but how do you feel about Deb Haaland being vetted for Interior? On the one hand, I think it’s great, on the other, I really am not liking the idea of taking any Democratic reps out of Congress right now.
Yutsano
@Miss Bianca: I thought one of the reasons for her consideration was her seat is safe. Granted I know NOTHING about New Mexico politics so I have no way of knowing if this is true or else.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: I’m trying not to troll anybody, I’ve always tried to respect the garden threads (et al) and apparently I’m in the minority here these days, but I really miss political/non-restricted threads and conversations
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: I have mixed feelings about Deb Haaland going to Interior. Pro: Having a Native American in charge of that department would be great, both for optics and substance. Con: I don’t think Deb has much experience running large bureaucracies and I’d prefer to have a a seasoned professional in every Cabinet position, given the amount of damage that needs to be undone. Her seat is in a fairly safe district, so I’m not worried about holding it for the Dems.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, Interior is about land use, so it kinda, sorta fits under gardening. :)
No One You Know
Anise hyssop drew clouds of bumblebees, honey bees, and very frequent Anna’s Hummingbirds. Garlic proceed unexpectedly attractive to bees a well.
New feeder arrangement brought in multiple finches, Golden- and White- Crowned Sparrows, pine siskins, and Townsend’s Warblers. Red-headed woodpecker, Northern Flicker, and Downies came. I now have a regular Cooper’s Hawk as well.