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Welcome to my zone 9a habitat garden near Houston, Texas.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Wildflower Wednesday...er, Thursday

I have a distressing habit of forgetting to participate in Gail of Clay and Limestone's excellent Wildflower Wednesday meme each month. I always seem to remember it a day or two too late.

Well, it happened again this month. After all, it is Wildflower WEDNESDAY and here it is Thursday already, but I decided, what the heck? I'll participate anyway. Better late than never, right?

I have several wildflowers growing and blooming in my yard right now. Let me show you a few.

This is a wild allium which came up in my yard last year. It was the only one of its kind. I thought it was so attractive that I dug it and potted it up to try to encourage it to multiply. And, here it is, still in its pot and blooming for me again. When it finishes bloom this year, I'm going to plant it in one of my beds. I'm not entirely sure which allium it is. My best guess is Allium canadense, but it could be Allium drummondii. Whatever its proper name, I quite like my little pink allium.

This is another gift of Nature that has seeded itself in my garden this spring. It is Philadelphia fleabane (Eigeron philadelphicus). It's been in bloom for a couple of weeks now and, as you can see, it has several buds which promise more blooms.

This plant has been used in traditional medicines. The dried and crushed parts of the plants are used to make a tea that is beneficial for sore throats, the treatment of stomach ailments, and even for a poultice that can be applied to swelling. I'm not sure where it came from, but I think I'll dig it and plant it in my wildflower bed.

And speaking of my wildflower bed, when it's spring in Texas, it is bluebonnet time. Sometimes we get a few pink bonnets among the blue, as you see here. The bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas.

I grow purple oxalis on purpose in my garden, but its cousin, Oxalis violacea or violet wood sorrel pops up in beds all over my garden. Technically, it's a weed, of course, but it's a very pretty one and unless it is in a particularly awkward spot, I tend to ignore it and let it flower. Which is probably why it keeps popping up around my yard.

Here's wishing you joy with your wildflowers. Next month, I'll try to be on time.

12 comments:

  1. I love the oxalis, never grown it myself. I don't think I have any plants that can be characterised as wildflowers, except for the occasional weed, but they are few and far between since I am using bark mulch everywhere.

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    1. Bark mulch certainly helps keep down the weeds, but I find that quite a few are able to establish themselves in my garden regardless of the mulch.

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  2. Beautiful wildflowers!
    Have a blessed Easter week-end!
    Lea
    Lea's Menagerie

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  3. I have an oxalis that looks a lot like yours, I'll have to look up my list and see. It isn't even out of the ground yet. Your Blue Bonnets look great, I don't think they grow up here but other Lupines do. The wild Allium is really a bright magenta. Pretty!

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    1. I think oxalis of one kind or another is pretty much ubiquitous across the continent. The one that I showed here can be quite obnoxious and hard to control, almost impossible to eradicate, but it is so pretty when it blooms that it is hard to stay angry with it.

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  4. Those bluebonnets are truly a classic. There is a wild lupine that grows in the midwest but not in my immediate area.

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    1. Bluebonnets really are one of the prettier things about Texas. One of the best things about them is their long bloom cycle, so we have that beauty for several weeks.

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  5. Hi Dorothy, I'm glad i came back here even if I'm the first and you're the last linker. I love your weeds, if they are here i will certainly do what you did, domesticate it, after all I am sure many commercial ornamentals were weeds once. We also have Oxalis weeds in my pots, but ours is the yellow O. curniculata. I've just discovered that capsules pop when touched producing soft firecracker-ly sounds.

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    1. And I'm glad you stopped by, Kalantikan. Yes, most if not all of our domesticated plants were "weeds" initially, and many of our weeds are quite as pretty as any of the highly bred plants. They can be quite useful in a habitat garden like mine. Perhaps their best attribute is their toughness. They are almost impossible to kill.

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  6. Dorothy, I am glad you joined the celebration on a Thursday. I leave my post up all week because we sometimes need a reminder. Love your bluebonnets! Thank you for sharing your wildflower bounty with us all...

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    1. I'm happy to do so, Gail, and thank you for hosting us!

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