In my Joe-Pye weed post last week I said I had two favorite late summer flowers. Here’s the other one: Tall Ironweed (Vernonia altissima).
Deep magenta-purple flowers in a showy flat-topped cluster at the top of a 10-foot plant. The stem is so tough – like iron – that cattle won’t browse it in the fields so it stands as an ornament. It’s so large you can easily see it from the highway, so beautiful it’s worth stopping to take a look.
(photo by Chuck Tague)
In late summer I have two favorite flowers. Here’s one of them: Sweet Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum). As you can see, it’s a favorite with insects too.
The plant is huge – 10 feet tall – and the flowers, though individually small, are arranged in a large dome-shaped cluster 6 to 9 inches across. Its size is amazing when you consider it grew to this height since April. Click on the photo to see what the entire plant looks like.
Joe-Pye weed used to be considered a weed and was only found growing in the wild near creeks and damp roadside ditches. But now gardeners use native plants so you don’t have to leave town to see it. Stop in Schenley Park and look at the wildflowers across the street from the Westinghouse fountain. The Joe-Pye weed is spectacular.
(photo by Chuck Tague)
As Chuck Tague pointed out last week, August is the end of the season for Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) but I couldn’t resist showing you a beautiful picture of this member of the milkweed family.
True to its name, Butterfly Weed is very attractive to butterflies. Here, a Coral Hairstreak drinks the nectar in Marcy Cunkelman’s garden.
This plant has done well this year and is still in bloom. Look for it in open, unmowed fields, especially at the recovered strip mines in western Allegheny County (also called the Imperial Grasslands).
(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)
Dense Blazing Star (Liatris spicata) is blooming among the goldenrod and the prairie is decked out in purple and gold. Indigo buntings sing from the trees and American goldfinches fly loops around the field.
Don’t miss your chance to see Jennings Prairie in bloom. You can get a guided tour of the flowers on Friday July 31 at 10:00am when the Wissahickon Nature Club visits Jennings Environmental Education Center in Butler County. Meet at the Prairie parking lot. Click here for more information.
…If I didn’t have to work, I’d be there!
(photo by Chuck Tague)
Looking for something beautiful and red? Then you’ll enjoy finding Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) in bloom this month.
Cardinal flower grows in wet places and is quite a hummingbird favorite. I too love its deep, red color.
You can find it along the Butler-Freeport Trail south of Cabot, in the woods at Jennings Environmental Center and in many other places in western Pennsylvania. Check the creek sides, look in the shady places. It’s worth a hike to find it.
(photo by Tim Vechter)
Here’s a plant worth going out of your way for: Button Bush or Cephalanthus occidentalis.
Button Bush is shrub that grows in sunny, wet places. It prefers to have its feet in or near water, so it’s found in swamps, along ponds and in wet stream beds.
The flower ball is fascinating up close. To me, it looks like a TV satellite but is actually many small flowers, each with a tall pistil that stands out far from the ball. When you take a close look you’ll notice another nice thing about the plant. The flowers are very fragrant.
If you decide to look for Button Bush, check near ponds and rivers. I found it pre-bloom next to the Youghiogeny River at Ohiopyle. Dianne Machesney found this one at Independence Marsh in Beaver County.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
Here’s another butterfly pleaser in the milkweed family: Asclepias incarnata or Swamp Milkweed.
I found it blooming last week at Raccoon Creek State Park’s Wetland Trail – which is no surprise. This flower’s favored habitat is wet ditches, wet meadows and shorelines.
Swamp Milkweed flowers have a pretty two-tone effect. The top is white and the lower petals are rosy purple. They’re especially beautiful when Great Spangled Fritillaires are sipping their nectar.
(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)
This stunning flower is not only beautiful, it’s big. Lilium superbum (“superb lily”) is well named, standing 3-7 feet tall with a flower 3-4 inches wide and many flowers per plant. Unlike the non-native Tiger Lilies you see blooming by the road, the leaves of this plant are whorled around the stem and the petals curl back in the Turk’s cap shape that gives it its name. This picture shows two flowers, one behind the other.
Turk’s Cap Lilies are not common so when you find one you remember it. The first one I ever saw was blooming along the banks of the Youghiogeny River at Ohiopyle, July 1994. I’d love to see one this year.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
It’s a red flower with a Bad Hair Day. It’s a favorite in gardens, it’s a favorite with hummingbirds and it blooms in July.
It’s Monarda didyma, otherwise known as Bee Balm.
Native Americans used it as an antiseptic and made it into tea, hence its other name: Oswego tea.
See the shape of the nectar tubes? Chuck Tague says they fit a hummingbird’s face like a glove.
Click the photo above for a more distant look, so you can identify them from afar.
(Cover photo by Chuck Tague. Click-through photo by Dianne Machesney.)
If you’ve never been to Pennsylvania’s mountains in early July, here’s a surprise for you. The Rhododendron is in bloom.
Rhododendron maximum comes from a large family of flowering plants that includes azaleas. There are over 1,000 species and 28,000 cultivars. In early May our cultivated azaleas and rhododendrons bloomed. Now it’s time for the natives to get into the act.
There’s an added bonus when you’re surrounded by beautiful, blooming rhododendrons in the Laurel Highlands. You’re likely to see a bird that loves to nest among them — the black-throated blue warbler.
(photo by Chuck Tague)