Native Plants & Wild Flowers - Spring 2014

[CrazyEd]

With spring moving in slowly but surely there are plenty of native plants and wild flowers waking up. Now is a good time to take a look and be cautious if you are spraying roundup anywhere. My backyard is basically a test lab as I have an insane amount of different species that I grow, study and harvest the seed. Then I just throw all the seed around on our farm. I took a few photos of some of the plants that I saw today and thought I would share them here.

Prairie Smoke

Purple Coneflower

Spiderwort

 

[CrazyEd]

Bee Balm

Pale Purple Coneflower

Lance Leaved Coreopsis

 

[CrazyEd]

Jacobs Ladder (I think)

Foam Flower

Wild Geranium

 

[CrazyEd]

Penstemon

Wild Sweet William

Columbine

 

[CrazyEd]

Wild Ginger

Nodding Onion

Wild Bergamot

 

[CrazyEd]

Black Eyed Susan (I Think)

 

[Riggsgwp->]

I have an 8 acre stand of cp-25 that is on its second year, not sure how many times I should mow it this year. There were a lot of wildflowers coming up last year but I don't really know what to expect this year. Any thoughts?

 

[mikmaze]

some good looking plants Ed, I especially for some odd reason like the wild ginger. It was one of the plants I was psyched to find growing in a soon to be sub development while in college, so I dug it up and added it to the college arboretum.

 

[dipper]

Thanks Ed, I really need to improve my identification skills, this is great stuff.

 

[2ndHand]

Thanks for the photo gallery - this will be helpful for future plantings!!

 

[Turkey Creek]

Ed I am sure your picture of Black Eyed Susan is definitely BES. I planted some in my yard and it went rogue! Took me several years to eradicate it. Seed germinated everywhere!

 

[Native Hunter]

Looking good Ed. I found a spot on the creek bank while turkey hunting where the Blue Bells were really beautiful this spring. I should have snapped a pic with the I-phone.

On the 8 acres and mowing - my thoughts are to only mow for 2 reasons (1) to keep something undesirable from going to seed, and (2) to let enough sunlight hit the ground if something I like is being shaded by something else.

 

[Riggsgwp->]

Thanks Native Hunter. I didn't mean to jump in on Ed's thread just wasn't sure and I don't want to screw anything up on my crp.

 

[CrazyEd]

From the looks of your iris, spring is at least a full month ahead where you are than here :(

Stu those pics, that bed is on the south side of our all brick house. everything in that bed always wakes up ahead of schedule and grows very well in that location. I have about 10 different iris, if you ever want a piece of root let me know.

 

[CrazyEd]

Thanks Native Hunter. I didn't mean to jump in on Ed's thread just wasn't sure and I don't want to screw anything up on my crp.

Jump Around!

 

[CrazyEd]

Geez...don't get me tempted on a flower exchange :D

What's mine is yours brother, you know I love to share. I don't have a ton of space here and honestly the clumps of iris I have are a bit pushy so I am always giving them away to keep mine manageable. I will take some pics when they are in full bloom in a few weeks, if you see something you like - seriously I would be happy to send a root. I did get 3 beautiful varieties from my grandpa in marquette county, surprisingly those things always grew damn well in the sand, he has some massive beds around his pole barns and I just took a pinch now i have a ton.

 

[Doug Galloway]

Ed....can you take a pic of the above when they are in full flower for reference?

 

[wildfire]

Am not sure about other states, but in Mn.,we have trillions and trillions of trilliums.

 

[CrazyEd]

Here's a few pictures I took last summer.

Spiderwort:

Wild Sweet William

Bee Balm

 

[CrazyEd]

Purple Coneflower

Wild Bergamot

Pale Purple Coneflower