Wildflower Blooms

From our morning walk the other day there were these showy, native flowers.

Bee Balm

Black-Eyed Susan

Blue Vervain

Compass Plant

Gray-Headed Coneflower

Joe Pye Weed

Obedient Plant

Prairie Blazing Star

Purple Coneflower 

Purple Prairie Clover

Show-offs

More native plants...

Bee Balm

Big Bluestem

Prairie Blazingstar and Ox-Eye Sunflower

Blue Vervain

Joe-Pye Weed

Compass Plant

Yellow Coneflower

 

Wildflower Walk

From our walk recently there was this....

Joe Pye Weed taller than I am.

And the most spectacular Blue Vervain.

It is important to note that both of these native plant species arrived here without any known human help.

We didn't plant them.

Lesson:  Build native habitat and they will come....

Who Was Joe Pye and Wassup With His Weed?

Meet Eupatorium maculatum - commonly known as Joe-Pye Weed. The monarch butterfly is bonus.

This stuff grows all over around here - not a single plant introduced by us.  

A member of the aster family it is a native plant.  Like blue vervain it also likes wet feet and thrives in the lower and wetter areas of topography and along the creek banks.

Butterflies love this plant and if you could successfully propagate it - it would make for a showy addition to your naturalized home garden.

Joe Pye?

Some say he was a native American medicine man from Salem, Massachusetts who earned fame and fortune curing colonial settlers of typhus with his eponymous herb.  There are other theories as well. 

 You can learn more about the story of Joe Pye and his weed here.  

Taking Time to Smell the Flowers

The weather lately has been wet, wet, wet.  As a consequence gardening has gotten slower and muddier, weeding has grown much easier and three and a half miles or so of trails cry-out for deferred maintenance. 

Yesterday afternoon I caught a break between storms and the girls and I were able to get out and fetch the SD cards from the trail cameras and inspect what's going on here at The Platz.

Check this out....

Gray-Headed Cone Flowers

Monarch caterpillar and Sweet Joe-Pye Weed











Strikingly-beautiful Blue Vervain

Towering eight foot tall Compass Plant

More Gray-Headed Coneflower amid the Fireweed (Evening Primrose) and a Monarch












And a Friterary Butterfly hanging out in the Joe-Pye Weed...

 

Click on images for a better look

 

Who Was Joe Pye and What's With His Weed?

Meet Eupatorium maculatum - commonly known as Joe-Pye Weed.

This stuff grows all over around here - not a single plant introduced by us.  A member of the aster family it is a native plant.  Like blue vervain it also likes wet feet and you can find it here in the lower areas of topography and along the creek banks.

Butterflies love this plant and if you could successfully propagate it - it would make for a showy addition to your home garden.

Joe Pye?

Some say he was a native American medicine man from Salem, Massachusetts who earned fame and fortune curing colonial settlers of typhus with his eponymous herb.  There are other theories as well.  You can learn more about the story of Joe Pye and his weed here.

Joe-Pye Weed

Eupatorium maculatum.  Another member of the aster family.  Because it sometimes has spots it is commonly called Spotted Joe-pye Weed.

click on images to enlarge

This native species is well-adapted to wetter locations so it's often found in ditches, along stream banks and potholes.  The plants in the photos are growing in locations that are typically standing water in spring.

In case you are wondering about the odd name.  It comes from a medicine man named Joe Pye.

Butterflies love it.

Wildflowers

Joe-Pye Weed - Eupatorium maculatum.

click on image to enlarge

A member of the aster family it is named after a folk-healer named Joe Pye.
Butterflies are attracted to its nectar.