Wildflowers Continued...

Thanks to a knowledgeable old gentleman friend I now know the identity of that 'unknown' tiny white wildflower in my last post. The plant is Arenaria lateriflora – Blunt-leaved Sandwort.  It is a short tiny plant with narrow oval leaves and a delicate stem. They are frequently found in gravelly places and they bloom from spring to early summer.

Blunt leaved Sandwort

Here is a link to a site with very good photos of it:


http://science.halleyhosting.com/nature/basin/5petal/pink/moehring/lateriflora.htm

Blunt leaved sandwort and red osier dogwood flower

There are quite a number of 1 meter tall broader leaved plants growing along the trail to the lake with white clusters of flowers. The same friend identified them as Red Osier Dogwood, also a wild plant. The leaves and stems will turn red in the fall.

red osier dogwood flower

http://www.albertawow.com/vegetation/berries_vegetation.htm


More wildflower photos to follow...

Mulching, Seedlings and Scarification

Things are almost all done in my existing flower beds now, except for adding the mulch. My helpful husband had shovels a load of mulch into the wheelbarrow for me to use a while ago, but I hadn't finished planting the gazanias and portulaca around the edges of a couple of beds, plus I was expecting that some of my lavatara would probably bite the dust and have to be replaced. (Happily they are all thriving and I am so pleased about that since I planted them all from seed. :)
I even brought a few to Calgary to plant in my daughter's flower bed. Now they all just have to grow bigger and set some blossoms.)

I also successfully grew morning glory vines and a tall variety of mixed Cosmos, which are all growing well, but have no signs of blossoms yet.

Hansa rose bush on the east side of the house

I tried growing snapdragons from the seed pods left in the flower beds over winter by planting them in pots in the greenhouse. ONE sprouted out of the 2 dozen I planted. I had sprinkled quite a number of seeds directly into the flower bed as well and guess what??? I have about 2 dozen tiny seedling that popped up there! I learned something new recently about seeds: some seeds particularly the tiniest ones (and we all know how tiny poppy seeds are) prefer to be sprinkled on the soil and not covered. Some seeds actually need light to germinate. Go figure!

Then there's the process of scarification. No, that's not what you do to the crows and magpies who try to eat the seeds. :)
Some seeds need to be scratched in order to break through the hard coating to allow them to germinate. Lupins for instance... No wonder I had no luck getting any lupins to germinate in the greenhouse! But why did some lupins seed themselves and successfully germinate in the flower bed? Who scarified them? Mother nature!
Lying on the cold ground and freezing all winter cracked the outer coat and they germinated in the spring. Go figure!

Calendulas are another one. I had many calendulas in the flower bed at the front of my house in northern Manitoba. They were there when I moved in and I lived there for almost 20 years. I had calendulas germinate in the flower bed all by themselves every spring. I just helped by leaving some of the flowers to go to seed, then shaking the seeds onto the ground in the fall.

Blue Sage May Night growing vigorously as usual. Liatris near bottom right, coneflower above that. Yellow sedum blooming on left, white daises at bottom corners

The bees are having a heyday with my blue sage and really enjoy the abundant blossoms of May Night.  

My white daisies have all popped open now and they still seem to be quite numerous in spite of the fact that I culled many of the clumps out of my beds... Today I trimmed many of the daisies that were growing tall close to my rose bushes in order to give the roses the maximum amount of sun exposure.
I cut a pretty bouquet of my May Night blue sage, added white daisies, a few early pink columbines and a couple of late purple /white irises. I also included some pasque flower seed pods and a tall grass stem or three. It makes quite a pretty ensemble for my dining room table.  :)

Speaking of lupines, mine are starting to bloom now. I have 2 kinds, one is pink and the other a dark purple/blue. I have a love of flower spikes for some reason. Which is why I love snapdragons, sages, foxgloves hollyhocks and delphiniums.

Pink lupins in bloom

My hollyhocks are growing fat blossoms, but my delphiniums are very short this year. ( Last year they grew, close to 7 feet tall what with all the rain!) I think the reason they are a bit stunted is that I dug them almost all out of the flower beds this spring to remove all the quack grass roots.  Little green caterpillars  have been attacking them and eating most of the flower stems trying to grow. I mostly squished them with my garden gloves. :(

A better idea would be to mix up a spray bottle of Neem Oil and spray everything.  This year so far no worms have eaten my red current bush as happened the last 3 years. I should spry it with Neem anyway just to be sure.

One last thing: sunflowers!
I have dozens of sunflowers that have sprouted in my stack stone bed near the bird feeder, thanks not only to the careless birds, but to the forgetful marmots who live under my gigantic Juniper bush. I thought today that our big orange cat was going to make a meal out of the marmot, but I couldn't stand to watch it unfold, so I left.  I don't think the cat was quick enough, though, as I didn't see any evidence of disaster afterwards.

Thrift perennial growing well on east side of angel bed

Wild Flowers

I love walking the trails at Buffalo Lake at this time of the year and observing the many tiny different types of wild flowers that shyly peer out of the long grasses.  They are easy to miss unless you take the time to look for them.

Unknown

I'm not sure what theses tiny white flowers are. The closest looking ones in the Alberta Wayside Wildflower been are the Canada anemone, but I am certain these are too tiny. They are similar to wild strawberries, and grow very low to the ground...

Solomon Seal

Solomon's Seal (Similacina stella) has tiny 6 pointed white star flowers.  Medicinally the roots are used in teas to reduce coughs. They may also be applied to burns as poultices. It gets berries which taste sweet but can cause vomiting. Solomon's Seal is growing all along our path to the lake.

Solomon's Seal

Wild Strawberry flower

You can make tea from the leaves of the wild strawberry plant, which is rich in vitamin C and minerals. The strawberry fruit is small but packs a lot of flavor.

Field Mouse ear Chickweed

This little one, the Field Mouse Ear Chickweed (latin name: Cerastium Arvenses) is distinguished by its 5 double-lobed white petals.  "Alberta Wayside Wildflowers" book says that it is edible. It is native across Canada and the world.

Early Blue violets

Early Blue Violets can be various colors from blue to violet. Violets are a low wildflower, only 2 - 8 cm tall. They are among the most fragrant wildflowers but a substance called ionine dulls the smell for you after a few minutes. The fragrance will reappear a few minutes later, only to disappear again, off and on like a light switch. 

Bird Vetch

These Bird Vetches (vicia cracca) were quite short, but the Alberta Wayside Wildflower Book says that they can grow up to 1 meter tall. They are rich in nectar and both birds and butterflies love them. They can be blue to lavender in color and bloom from June to August.

Prickly wild rose

Wild Alberta Rose also known as the prickly rose is the floral emblem of Alberta. The petals are edible, although I personally have not tried them. :) 

 The wild rose flowers are popping out all along our lake trail and they look so delicate and beautiful.

Potentilla cinquefoil

This cinquefoil is growing on the beach along the lake shore

I planted a perennial ciquefoil in one  of my flower beds last summer, but although it did grow, it failed to bloom. I am hoping that it will bloom this summer. I think the flowers on it are supposed to be red, though...

Last but not least known is the common dandelion, (Taraxacum officinale).  Most of us are very familiar with this 'wild flower'. Since ancient times it has been planted for food an medicine. The young leaves are rich in vitamins and minerals and are good in salads and as cooked greens. I guess we should stop trying to eradicate them and start harvesting their leaves instead! :)

Common Dandelion

Also saw some common three-flowered avens yesterday and some tiny little blue eyed grass on top of Picnic Hill. Will have to take my camera up there and get a photo.

Guillardias, Gazanias, Rubeckias and More

Planting continues...
We have had a lot of rain this spring (May and June) and this weekend was no exception. Today the weather was a wonderful surprise, a welcome contradiction to the earlier forecast. It started out cloudy and cool but cleared up by mid morning. The rest of the day was sunny and warm, +25C ( as apposed to the mere +16C forecast.)

I planted 2 Guillardias (Blanket flowers), both Goblins to replace the 2 Arizona Suns that failed to come up this year. For the last 3 years the Arizona Suns had consistently bloomed well all summer long and had always outperformed the Goblin guillardia hands down. But Goblin outlasted them... I moved Goblin last fall to a new location at the far end of my long perennial bed, as the Campanula cluster bellflower was crowding it out. It almost sprang out of the ground this spring, earlier than ever before although the spot where it was relocated loses the snow quite late in spring. I planted one new Goblin next to that old one and one in the original Guillardia Arizona sun location, at the east side of my big round Angel bed.

After that I planted 2 out of 3 new rudbeckias to replace the ones I had last year (Autumn Colors). The new ones are called Cherry Brandy so we'll see what the blossoms look like in a week or so as they already have big buds on them. Looking forward to that! The 3rd rudbeckia will go into the lower half of my rock garden.  At least that is something that I know the deer and the marmots won't eat... But just in case, I will have to remember to spry them with Bobbex tomorrow.

Another new addition is a coreopsis which is a perennial in some climates, but ends up being an annual  here as I have never been able to over-winter one. This one is called Jethro Tull for some reason (like the singer). I planted it at the west end of the long perennial bed near the Moss/ stepping stone path. It also has big buds on it and won't be long till it blooms.  All these last 6 plants were from Home Depot and were very root bound, but I slit open the roots at the bottom and hopefully they will grow well.

The Cosmos seeds that I had planted came up well and some of them are 8 inches tall already. I planted them out today, too and watered them well. Some are at the top of my rock garden, a few are in the east facing bed at the side of the house, and a few are in the triangle stack stone bed close to the rocket snaps.

I also transplanted my gazanias which I started from seeds and put each little plant into it's own pot. I hope that will encourage them to grow faster. They seem to have come to somewhat of a stand still and they did not have very many roots. Time to step up the Miracle Grow, I guess.

Last of all I weeded the west side of my old stack stone bed. The chickweed is trying to take over as well as a number of other weeds. I also managed to yank out a lot of tall grasses. The self seeded sunflowers in that side of the bed are HUGE already. I think I might dig some of them up and put them in a pot on the deck. many of the rest will have to be transplanted to other flower beds as there are so many coming up. I like sunflowers a lot but I don't want them to create shade for my rose bushes which, by the way, are growing well. 

Photos soon. :)

June Flowers

The weather has been cooperating lately with a fait amount of sunny beautiful days but also some rain showers in between to water the flower beds and veggie garden.

Tulips blooming and lilies growing

The tulips continue to bloom strangely enough, LOL! I guess I had planted a few late spring bloomers too so it has been a steady progression of tulips in bloom for over a month now. Quite nice!
The Siberian irises are also in bloom and looking great, at least eh established clump in my rock garden is. The newly transplanted clump in last years newest bed is only a few inches above the ground. But at least it did survive the winter.

Siberian Iris

My bleeding heart bush is looking fabulous for this being only it's second growing season. My old one in my wild bed doesn't seem to be coming up at all. I think all the grass and daisies and 'wildness' has choked it out.

Another failure: my Arizona Sun Guillardias seem to have bit the dust. :(  They were usually late in coming up, but were such proficient bloomers once they got going... and I love that they blossom all summer!

Deck pot: Osteo daisies, pansies and Diamond Frost euphorbia

 My Goblin/ Kobold Guillardia is doing well where I transplanted it last fall at the far end of my long perennial bed. It has made an earlier than usual appearance of leaves, but is still far from the blooming stage.  I plan on visiting the greenhouse again soon and getting another Arizona sun if possible.

New additions:
I bought an angel wing ligularia at a reputable greenhouse so I hope this one grows better than the one I bought at a department store last summer (which didn't survive the winter.)

My Lambs Ears also failed to make an appearance this spring. Last year they looked the best they have ever done. I had difficulty finding any replacements at first, but I was lucky on Sunday. We visited Echo Glen Greenhouse and they kindly yanked 2 Lambs Ear roots out of their own flower beds for me cost free. (I guess they were re-doing their beds and were taking them out anyway, but I appreciated the thoughtfulness.) They are now situated next to the ligularia in the shady side of my stack stone bed, not too far from the brown-leafed Heuchera also a new addition.

Lilacs just started blooming in my yard

I checked one of my gardening books and it says that both Guillardias and Lambs Ears are short lived perennials. Three years is about their limit for the adult plants, but if you let them go to seed they should start new young ones. The mulch may have deterred that from happening though...

My lilacs just started blooming a few days ago. The lilac bushes were already blooming over 2 weeks ago in Winnipeg. (Lucky them!) I love the heady smell and I wish they would bloom all summer! :)
My little Miss Kim Lilac is full of buds and they should be opening soon...

My rose bushes are filling out well and I must remember to put some bone meal into the soil around them this week. Should have done that already.

Orange Gazanias

The deck pots are slowing getting planted and looking really beautiful. I have 4 new half wine barrels in the yard and I finally got all of them planted as well as the old ones by the road. Have to remember to take some photos soon. :)

Mauve Osteo daisies, white geranium, white lobelia and purple angelonia (on left)

I love these pretty pansy faces! :D

Pesky varmints have been sneaking into the vegetable garden and helping themselves to the Swiss Chard growing there. My busy husband put a ayer of chicken wire around the bottom of the fence on the inside and then put a 2 by 4 under the gate to block the big opening there (where I suspect the marmots have been waltzing through with no difficulty.)  Spirit chases them every chance she gets but they quickly run into the huge Juniper bushes in the yard where she can't touch them.

Surprise apple tree

We always wondered what the little tree in the backyard was. It suddenly burst out with white blossoms all over it for the first time in 5 years! Go figure...

The rhubarb is gigantic and today I cut the seed heads off and cut a big bowl of rhubarb to make some squares. Time to go try out the fruits of my labour! :)

Creeping phlox in full bloom at the edges of the flower beds

Next project: hoeing the chickweed and there little seedling trying to disguise themselves as veggies.