Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Wildflower Gardening by Default


I am taking a laissez faire approach to gardening this year. I have not pulled a weed. (Well, accept for dandelions, clover, garlic mustard and vetch. Oh yeah, and globe thistle sproutlings. Egads, what was I thinking when I planted them?) In the beginning, I was too busy, but then I noticed the miniscule white blossoms of mountain sandwort, a blushing pink lady’s slipper and a burst of purple from a dame’s rocket, so I had to leave them. I never got around to weeding a bed close to the woods only to discover that what I had been pulling all these years is wild sarsaparilla.

I have decided to catalog what it is that I have growing instead of trying to tame it. Here is the list so far. I'll update it as the season progresses

Wild Sarsaparilla
Pink Lady’s Slipper
Beardstongue
Mountain Sandwort
Mountain Laurel
Highbush Blueberry
White Wood Aster
Whorled Loosestrife
Two-flowered Cynthia
Witch Hazel
Butterfly Weed
Common Mugwort
Lady’s Thumb
Dame’s Rocket
Yellow Hawkweed
White Campion
Philadelphia Fleabane
Ground Ivy
Cow Vetch
Sweet Fern
Bracken

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do you know so much about wildflowers, on top of all your other encyclopedic knowledge?! You never cease to amaze...

On another note, the names on that list are beautiful, with maybe one or two exceptions. (Fleabane doesn't really ring my bell!)
-Kim

Deejbrown said...

Fantastic! The earth wants her own again. So glad you don't have a mower.

Anonymous said...

What's the picture of? Michele

Bevson said...

The photo is Swamp Dewberry. I do not have it on my land. This was over by Monksville Reservoir.

Bevson said...

Update: Indian Pipe, Spotted Wintergreen