From the Archives: Dandelion Clocks Aglow

This post was originally published June 6, 2008, when my son was eight. I've been noticing again how dandelion seedheads catch the light and have a magical appeal -- if you're open to it!

On a recent evening walk, I found the glow of dandelion seedheads, or "clocks," illuminated by the setting sun, quite magical. My son, like many children, loves to blow the dandelion clocks. Adults, on the other hand, tend to consider dandelion clocks an eyesore and shudder at the thought of those countless seed parachutes wafting over their lawns. I remember my mother teaching my brother and me to "tell the time" by counting the blows it took until the seeds were all blown away. There is still something compelling about those weightless, silky orbs, if we take the time to notice.

Prairie Flowers at St. Olaf Natural Lands

Today was such a gorgeous day -- downright chilly by normal July standards, but thoroughly refreshing and invigorating. I hadn't been over to the St. Olaf College natural lands for quite a while, and decided to visit the prairie restoration loop, which proved to be a sea of yellows and purples.

As has been typical this year, I hardly saw any butterflies and just a few bees. In the photo below, you can see orange pollen building up on the bee's "pollen basket" on its leg. The flower is purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea).

The tall yellow sunflower-like plant below is compass plant (Silphium laciniatum). The common name comes from the tendency of the lower leaves to align their edges in a north-south direction. The compass plant is said to be very long-lived, surviving as long as a century. Botanists use the term forb for herbs (non-woody plants) that are not grasses or grasslike, so the clover above and compass plant below would both be forbs.

I'm very much a beginner at dragonfly identification, but it looks to me as if the one below is a twelve-spotted skimmer (Libellula pulchella). I've been seeing these quite often in recent outings. Today they zigged and zagged along the path ahead of me, rarely landing or staying long in a good spot for me to get a photo, so I was pleased to be able to get this one.

The forecast in southeastern Minnesota is for quite a few more pleasant days ahead, with highs only in the 70s F. and nightly lows mostly in the 50s. That's great sleeping weather, and perfect for getting out and about. Enjoy!

Joe-Pye Weed with Bees

Because it's been so hot and humid lately I've not spent much time in the garden. The last couple of days have been much more tolerable, and this afternoon I wandered out with camera in hand to see what I would see.

My main backyard garden bed is a mix of vegetable space and perennial flowers, with a fair amount of weeds and grass in the mix.

Today I noticed that I have several tomato fruits developing, my peppers have pretty, bell-like flowers but no fruits yet, and my cucumber plants have been nibbled badly and are not faring well.

But mostly I noticed the flowers and the bees. On a mass of flowering thyme, tiny bees were in constant motion. Purple coneflowers are flowering in abundance, and the phlox is now in bloom. And on the giant Joe-Pye weed, standing well over five feet tall, there was a bee on almost every flower cluster. I saw one bumble bee, as well.

Joe-Pye weed (genus Eutrochium) is well known as a wonderful attractor for bees, butterflies and moths. It is native to the eastern United States. It's a pity that it has "weed" in its name (as quite a few valuable wildflowers do, including the milkweed so important to our monarch butterflies), as it may sound less appealing to add to gardens, but it's a terrific native plant for this area, supporting our pollinators. This page about gardening to support wildlife in Minnesota has a helpful list of other flowers, shrubs and trees that will encourage our native insects and birds.

I don't know whether any of the bees I saw today were standard European honeybees, whose mysterious declines we have read so much about, or whether they were all native bees. Whichever kinds they were, they were all busy with the vital work of pollination, and I thank them.

Spring Has Sprung, The Grass Is Riz

With the recent almost surreal heat  (80 F. last weekend at the end of a week of 60s and 70s), followed by some much needed rain and continued pleasant warmth, the first spring bulbs have come up and bloomed in one fell swoop: "boom and bloom," as my friend Mary over at My Northern Garden wrote. We've got daffodils, snowdrops, periwinkle and a lone crocus blooming at the same time at historically early dates, and forsythia is in bloom all over town. And the grass has turned beautifully green. All of these are extremely unusual for the third week or so of March. I took all of these photos on Friday.

Daffodils (Narcissus)

I thought I'd check my own records to see when these flowers have bloomed in previous years. So, here's a bit of spring flower phenology:

Last year on April 16 I noted that the daffodils had been blooming for several days when they got heavy, wet spring snow on them. In 2009 daffodil buds opened on April 17 and I noted that blue scilla were starting to show up in neighborhood lawns. I started noticing scilla today, March 23, looking as if they might have been blooming for at least a day or two already. In Jim Gilbert's book Minnesota Nature Notes (Nodin Press, 2008), which organizes nature observations by weeks of each month throughout the year, the section on daffodils and tulips is placed in the fourth week of April.

Snowdrops (Galanthus)

In 2008 I noted the first snowdrops (and a rainbow) on April 5. Snowdrops, as their name suggests, are often the first flower of spring, blooming as the snow retreats.

Periwinkle (Vinca)

In 2009 I described flowering periwinkles as "new growth" on April 22.

Crocus coming up through last year's maple leaves

I don't seem to have any previous posts mentioning crocuses -- probably because I don't remember noticing we even had one until perhaps last year. (When I took the photo above, I didn't notice the ant on the flower. Can you see it?) Jim Gilbert says crocuses usually start blooming by very early April, and he describes an early crocus blooming in a favorable microclimate despite snow on the ground on March 19, 2007 (Gilbert, p. 87).

Midsummer Flowers

There is a fine tangle of purple coneflowers, day lilies and ox-eye daisies in our front garden bed just now. We've seen goldfinches clinging to the coneflowers, and butterflies like them too.

Recent Observations (mid-June Phenology)

In no particular order, here are some recent Northfield-area nature and garden notes. All of the photos have large originals that can be seen if you click on the small images.

We last saw a red-breasted nuthatch at our feeders on May 29. I noted about two weeks earlier that each time I saw one I expected it to be the last time for the season. We've not seen any pine siskins, also mentioned in the post of two weeks ago, for quite a while either.

We've seen fewer songbirds and hummingbirds at the feeders as hatching insects and blooming flowers have offered more nutritional variety. It's my understanding that even birds that prefer seeds or fruit at some times of the year tend to feed insects to their hatchlings, due to the higher protein content. The grackles are becoming our most common visitors, enjoying the sunflower seeds, grape jelly and peanuts we put out with other birds in mind.

Weigela

One of the flowering shrubs that may be attracting the hummingbirds away from the feeder is our red Weigela bush, now in full flower. It's at a corner of the house that's not overlooked by any of our windows, so we don't have much opportunity to watch to see if the hummers are going there, but this bush is mentioned by a variety of sources as being very attractive to hummingbirds.

"Baby" crows are very comical -- as large as their parents and quite formidable-looking but bleating pitifully to be fed. We've heard them often and occasionally seen them near the house.

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)

I noticed my first purple coneflower in bloom yesterday. Last year I noted on June 27 that they had been blooming for the previous week or so, but I'm pretty sure I meant they had been widely in bloom for that period of time. The oxeye daisies have also started blooming, though most are not yet out.

Small acorns

The oak tree next to our house has formed lots of small, green acorns. I haven't paid much attention in the past to the timing of acorn production, so I can't tell you how this compares to the second week of June in other years.

Chives

 We all know it's been a mainly cool and rainy spring, slowing down both farmers and home gardeners from getting their planting done. We bought vegetable plants Mother's Day weekend and had them under lights inside until last weekend, when we finally got enough garden space cleared to put in seven tomato plants and some broccoli (we lost our pepper plants when the cats got at them), just in time for the dry, windy heat wave straight from Arizona that brought the temperature into the low 100s by some readings.

Sage in flower

We hadn't done a good job of hardening off our plants beforehand, and several of them look terribly stressed, even though the cool, damp weather returned quickly. The perennial herbs in the bed are doing fine, though. The chives are nearing the end of their bloom and the sage has just started blooming. We also have a much larger patch of lemon thyme this year, which I didn't realize would come back on its own.

Cottonwood seeds on deck

The cottonwood seed fluff has really picked up today and is drifting lazily down, occasionally swirling in the breeze, and sticking to the deck, which is wet from a light rain sprinkle. This is about a week later than I wrote a post on "cottonwood snow" in 2009.

What's Blooming

Every once in a while I like to use Picasa's collage feature, especially for flowers. I don't have an extensive or well-planned flower garden, but here's what's in bloom this week:

• Asiatic lilies from a collection I remember being called Peaches and Cream (top right, upper right center, lower left) -- these opened up within the last week.
• Purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea (top left and bottom right) -- these just started blooming in the past week or so.
• Oxeye daisies (upper left center and lower right center)
• Cranesbill geranium (hardy geranium -- a different group altogether from the popular potting plant known as garden geranium but actually members of the genus Pelargonium) (center) -- this has been in full bloom for several weeks and the blossoms are not as profuse as they were earlier in the season.
• Penstemon ("beardtongue") (lower left center) -- this close-up makes it look larger than it is - -these are quite small flowers on perennial plants with nice foliage that comes in a dark purple at first and changes to green as the season progresses. The flowers are very attractive to bees. We've also read that hummingbirds like them, but I haven't happened to notice them among these blooms.

Surprise Lilies

Every year I forget about the surprise lilies, and every year up they pop and add a touch of unexpected grace to the jungle that is my garden by this point in the summer. Also known as naked ladies and spider lilies, they belong to the genus Lycoris; the most common version in our part of the country is Lycoris squamigera, which bears pink flowers.

They do have leaves: their strap-like foliage comes up in the spring, but it eventually withers and dies completely back, so that you forget that the plant was ever there.

Weeks later, usually around the beginning of August in southern Minnesota, the tall flower shoots emerge seemingly from nowhere. This year we even mowed the end of the bed where they are, so their leafless appearance is even more startling.

I took these photos on Saturday; all of the shoots seen above are now in full bloom. You can learn more about surprise lilies here.

Perfect Roses

Taken at the Berkeley (Calif.) Rose Garden last week. Click on the photos to experience the full perfection.

Irises and Peonies

This morning's visit to the farmer's market yielded, besides various edible goodies, these lovely irises and the paler of the peonies - a sight fit to be painted - from Thorn Crest Farm. The darker pink peony came from a bush at our house. Perfect!

New Growth

The shiny, clean, new green of these vinca, or periwinkle, leaves and the soft purple of the flowers appear among last year's dead leaves and stems. Soon the new growth will cover the old.

While doing a little research on this plant, which is an attractive and useful vining ground cover, I came across this etymological tidbit on a page from a University of Vermont class on garden flowers:

...names from the Latin vincio meaning to bind, and later Middle English per wynke meaning same, referring to use in making wreaths which in Middle Ages were placed on heads of criminals on their way to execution; in Italy it was known as Fiore de morte being placed on bodies of dead infants; later and still occasionally today it is known as "Joy of the Ground."

So there you have it.

I noticed my first bees of the season today - about eight small ones, hovering and zipping about, not by these periwinkles or the nearby daffodils, but over earth and grass.

Let There Be Blossoms

The warmth of the last couple of days took the daffodils in my south-facing front flower bed from just starting to show flower buds last weekend to open blooms this afternoon (the photo on the left was taken just a day or two ago). As I drove about town this afternoon I also noticed that suddenly many lawns, just starting to green up, are painted blue with naturalized Scilla siberica (Siberian squill).


In another flower bed the first of my species tulips had opened up completely, though I hadn't even noticed that flowers were forming. Smaller than this cropped photo might suggest, species tulips are low-growing, hardy bulbs with a flower that is more star-shaped than cup-shaped. They make good addition to rock gardens, though mine are just in a normal bed near our front door.

We're expecting some much-needed rain in the next couple of days and cooler temperatures than the high 60s and low 70s we've been enjoying this week.

A Floral Arrangement

I'm much more a vegetable gardener than a flower gardener, but here is a bouquet of flowers from my gardens, including:

• a soft pink, huge-headed Raggedy Ann zinnia I grew from seed this season; I love these and will definitely plant them again. The mix of zinnia colors is always lovely, and I find these big, soft, shaggy heads very pleasing
  
• some yellow and orange marigolds my son grew from seed at school and presented me with on Mother's Day, contrasting nicely with blue lobelia
• hot pink yarrow, self-seeded in the lawn
• a multicolored marigold from the Lansings' new nursery store; I had several of these in a pot on my front stoop, but squirrels dug some of them up and they dried out before I realized what had happened
  
• a mix of purple coneflowers and what I assume are oxeye daisies, both of which spread and reseed themselves liberally. Oxeye daisies are actually listed as invasive and sometimes considered a weed, but tall, cheerful flowers that spring back even when mowed every season are okay with me.