Plants Blog
2021 - 2022
Prairie Trillium and the Ant
Last night I found a big black ant carrying a Prairie Trillium seed across my kitchen counter. Tightly clenched in its black jaws was a seed, to which the ant held on by a cream-colored swoop. Here's what was going on August 25 , 2022
My Purple Lobelia
Bumble bees pollinate Great Blue Lobelias. Hummingbirds pollinate Cardinal Flowers. So they don't usually cross pollinate. But they can. And with my help, they did exactly that in my garden. Here's how I did it. August 11 , 2022
Prairie Blazing Star
Prairie Blazing Star is opening its majenta eyes, and summer is fully upon us. One of the most valuable of our native flowers, Prairie Blazing Star makes food for bees, butterflies, other pollinators, and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. July 23, 2022
Fringed Loosestrife
Down in a low meadow while watching for bumblebees among the wild roses, I found a yellow flower — Fringed Loosestrife. This native wildflower is both pretty and inconspicuous. July 6, 2022
Purple Prairie Clover
Ahh, Purple Prairie Clover is starting to bloom, bottom first. The deer get a lot of them, but somehow few always survive. And have done so through the eons during which they grew with no help from human gardeners. Fourth of July, 2022
Tall Thimbleweed
I've found Tall Anemone in woods close to my house in southeast Iowa. Day by day I watched the leaves unfold and the stems shoot up. Then white globular buds formed. And at last now the plants have bloomed. June 26, 2022
Venus' Looking Glass
This dainty flower is blooming all over my little garden outside the living room. It's so tiny and spindly that it would be easy to weed it out in spring. But it you let it grow, it soon stands up tall and has pretty purple blossoms. June 18, 2022
Maidenhair Fern
One of the loveliest of Iowa's ferns Maidenhair Fern. It cascades over the soil and exposed roots of a steep cliff that is the bank of Crow Creek. It is my first experience ordering bare-root plants from a nursery. June 15, 2022
Purple Milkweed
Milkweeds are the most particular of flowers. To form pods and seeds, a flower must be pollinated. However, milkweed pollination is such a difficult and iffy process that I'm amazed the plants can reproduce at all. June 9, 2022
Bloodroot of the Ants
Ants gather Bloodroot seeds and take them back to the nest. Not for the sake of the seeds themselves, but for something stuck to the seed that they feed to their young. Then they throw the actual seeds away. June 3, 2022
First Jacob's Ladder of Spring
It is this year, probably because of the delayed and cold spring. But at now the Jacob's Ladder is in bloom under the Rebud trees. They also do well on the shady side of the house. They bloom later there, extending their time of bloom. May 2, 2022
First Trout Lily of Spring
White Trout Lily. This flower is fair of face, but to look it in the eye one has to lie down, cheek against the moist ground, close as lovers sharing a pillow. It is a spring ephemeral, blooming before the trees leaf out. April 25, 2022
First Virginia Bluebells of Spring
First thing the wind did today, it shook the Virginia Bluebells awake. Now they're all smiles. They glance downward like shy young girls who suspect but don't yet fully realize their own beauty. April 22, 2022
First Violet of Spring
It's been a startlingly cold, dark spring. But at last this morning the sun came up and came out. As if in celebration, a few violets in the woods ventured to open a bud or two and turn their faces upward. April 21, 2022
The Elm and its Afterlife
It has been a beloved tree. For as long as we have lived here the American Elm has arched over our gravel road. Today, with the respectful skill of a surgeon, Eli removed the dead limbs sure to come down in the first ice storm. Dec. 16, 2021
Buttonbush
My grandmother used to push closely spaced cloves into an orange and let it dry until it became a fragrant sachet. Buttonbush seeds remind me of those cloves, the way they fit together so neatly that they form a solid sphere. Nov. 10, 2021
Virginia Creeper Berries
A Swainson's Thrush migrating north to south across North America in fall needs fuel to survive the trip. Fuel like the berries of Virginia Creeper. Some may hate it, but the birds need it. So I love it. Oct. 14, 2021