Gardening Flowers & Foliage

Not much for flowers and foliage this time of year here, but while the world is dormant outside I’m planning my spring native wildflower garden. These just came in from American Meadows. New England aster and red clover. I’ve already got a ton of white wood asters growing wild around my yard, but this variety produces purple blooms. Same thing with the red clover. It grows wild in a small spot in my front yard, but the nonnative white variety is the most prevalent. A pound of seeds should fix that imbalance. Besides these, I’ve got some Dutchman’s breeches roots coming in the spring, which are the native variety of bleeding hearts. I’ve also got a sizable amount of milkweed and goldenrod seeds, so I should have plenty of color and pollinator food for late in the summer.

 

I can send you a bunch of butterfly milkweed seed next summer if you want.

Bachelor Buttons seem to be pretty hardy & low maintenance.

 

That would be great, thanks. I believe the variety prevalent around here is common milkweed. The butterfly version is definitely nicer to look at.

 

Native aster? Ugh... I pull that stuff out when I see it. Can't keep up with it, though. I view it as an invasive weed. I'm sure it has its place, however.

 

I hear you. It does have a tendency to overtake entire areas. I’m building a couple dedicated raised beds to contain it, and any wild volunteers outside the zone are subject to getting the weedwhacker treatment. There’s only a couple spots that I don’t mind it going wild.

 

Are you referring to the 3 to 4 ft tall Purple Asters that bloom around sept. 15 +\- each fall?

 

First, I'm LOLing about the "rare" NE Aster. I have that all over my yard and would have been happy to send you both seeds and rooted plants. I try to keep it at the perimeters (along the drainage area to the south and under the trees in back. It invaded my shrub garden years ago and I just let it be (except toward the front of that garden, where there are day lilies and other shorter plants). It also invaded my "island" garden. I try to manage it in some of the areas, but leave it between the yuccas and the Crimson King maple.

I've been getting some of the white asters the last couple of years too. Regardless of the kind of aster, bees, butterflies, wasps and other nectar lovers love the flowers so I am okay with just managing them - I don't try to get rid of them.

That is my assumption

 

No purple around the property. There's white ones with a yellow center here.

 

Huh I have purple ones too..

 

I would love to get those wild asters going. So far, I only have the little flower white ones. There are purple and pink in our area but I'm not able to transplant them. I have tried the ones from the greenhouses, but they fail to winter over.

 

Most of those from greenhouses are domesticated to some degree. Sometimes they have been bred to be sterile and to NOT spread by roots, and some are less hardy. If you still want some next fall, LMK and I'll send you both roots and seeds. Can't do it before fall since the whites and the purples are somewhat mixed. I know there is a slight difference in the leaves, but you really need to be a botanist to tell those apart (that is my excuse anyway). My luck, I'd manage to send you all whites - LOL.

 

Thank you. I'll also try bribing my grandkids into digging some up for me. They love getting some money.

 

Cmon spring you can do it.

 

Ha.. anything here is under inches of snow with an icy crust on top. damm groundhog!

 

I saw some dandelions blooming here the other day. Now they're under about 6 inches of snow....

 

Mom has crocuses and a Christmas rose blooming. The Christmas rose has been blooming for awhile. I have snowdrops about to burst into bloom. But then again, our snow is gone and it was nearly 50 F today.

 

Everything is under a couple of feet of snow, and the ground hasn't been snow free for a couple of months, so I have quite a ways to go

 

The harbinger

 

I forget the name of the one with the green spikes below, its some kind of bell type lily, and the second pic is a hellebore we planted last spring. We have other hellebores and they all start blooming in early February. I like them because the deer and rabbits don't go near them, they don't need much sun or water and the foliage stays all year long until mid winter when it seems to die back. That is when the new blooms emerge. They are often referred to as Lenten Rose.

 

We call them Hellebore or Lenten Rose. These are our first sign things are about to come back to life. It's amazing these things will bloom so early after the winter we've had and still make it through the hot humid summers we have here in South Jersey.