I love Rosa setigera, a June-bearing native rose that is somewhat variable in size, judging by the information I could find online. I was hoping for a medium-sized shrub when I put it in the rain garden in 2017, but it had other ideas. I moved it from the rain garden into the myrtle next to the house in 2020.
Category: Native Plants
A Drying Purple Period
I’m sure you’ve noticed that the weather has been peculiar this year. We went into winter in a drought, but picked up a lot of moisture by early spring. The drought ended. By the beginning of June, it was drying out again, which usually happens in late July or early August. Purple flowers made quite a splash this year, because they had a good start in the spring. Continue reading “A Drying Purple Period”
Twinleaf in Two Weeks
This plant goes from erupting to gestating seedpods in two weeks.
Mostly Native Spring Ephemera
The previous post dealt with mostly traditional, old-fashioned flowers. This one will cover the native ephemera and Iris cristata, which is native to the US, but not to Michigan, although it thrives here. Oh, yes—and a tiny volunteer rose—I have no idea where it came from. Continue reading “Mostly Native Spring Ephemera”
Foreshadowing Summer
Purple greets you at the entry to the garden. The Baptisia australis, also known as blue false indigo, that first poked above ground May 1 is in full bloom. Disturbingly rare this year are the bumblebees that usually adorn these plants.
An Appreciation of Rain
We started the year dry, and the weather patterns are so all-over-the-place that it’s worth stopping to appreciate the rain.
It’s a secret—don’t tell anyone—but almost as often as not, morels come up in this yard. This year a few appeared and disappeared in the first week of May.
May Natives: Flashy, Until They’re Not
May is the showiest month in my garden. A lot of flowers bloom, including many natives. Which one is my favorite? The one I am standing in front of at that moment.
Take Dutchman’s breeches, for example. It’s in the same family as bleeding hearts, but far more ephemeral. They started breaking ground the first week of April, were blooming by the beginning of May, and completely gone by the end of May. That’s just two months of the year aboveground.
Dutchman’s Breeches Approach the End of the Season
It has reached 80°. Temperatures like this are rough on early spring flowers, especially the natives. Especially when it snowed at the beginning of the week.
Continue reading “Dutchman’s Breeches Approach the End of the Season”
A Lot Can Happen in a Week
We are roughly two weeks behind where we were last year, based on last year’s photographs. Everything I mention in this post was in bloom at this time last year. The weather changes so much from year to year that I cannot tell you which year is closer to normal—or if there is a normal any more.
Weather aside, I love spring ephemera and will search for them doggedly from mid-March on as long as it’s not pouring rain. They are mostly very small, so I have to actually walk away from the window, go outside, and exercise my eyes looking for changes. Changes are rapid, so there is plenty of incentive to go outside frequently.
The Secret Pawpaws
September 2021. Pawpaw volunteers are a fact of life. About three weeks ago, I was admiring the stump sprout dubbed Phoenix that is replacing the pawpaw I cut down. Genetically, it is the gone pawpaw, and it has all the resources of the full-grown root system that was left behind. Continue reading “The Secret Pawpaws”