Wildflowers have always been a big part of my life, but the year was 1967 when I was more intimately introduced to them.  I can remember as a child the woods in front of our house was full of wild azaleas (what we called Honeysuckle back then) and I would gather them by the wheelbarrow load and bring those beauties to the house.  I should have been punished!!  Maybe if I had not abused them there would be more wild azaleas in our area today.

In the fall of 1966 we bought a house in Marietta and moved there in the spring of ’67.

And it was that spring that Margarite White Brown, a good friend who had grown up at the foot of Lookout Mountain in Valley Head, introduced us to growing wildflowers in the yard and helped make a place for them to grow. Our lot had lots of pines, but we brought dirt from woods where hardwood trees grew and made our very first bed.  Ms. Brown shared what she already had such as Rue Anemone, Phlox, ferns and such.  John and I were smitten right off the bat and the three of us spent many hours in the woods of Cobb County.  We went ahead of the bulldozers where new housing developments were about to be built and rescued flower after flower and brought it in to our lot.  In the early 1980’s when we knew we were moving to this location, we started moving the plants; however, we had bad drought years then, too, and lost lots of them.  During the 1970’s there was a picnic table on the side of the road at the foot of Sand Mountain and on a trip to the mountain we brought a picnic lunch and stopped at that table.  It was there that I got my very first Trillium and I was so excited.  When I shared the news in Georgia, of course, I was requested to bring them one.  Now there is no table there and the land has been fenced and is a pasture. 

Little by little we collected and our Trillium collection has grown to 20 varieties and we are delighted.  Last year John made a new Trillium bed just off the sun porch and moved some of the ones from the shade garden area.   I can view it from the warmth and comfort of the porch and what a pleasure.  On a good day (and we have not many warm ones of late) I still thrill at going to the shade garden to see what’s over there.  It’s heartbreaking to see it abandoned; however, we cannot keep it anymore and have to accept that.  I have to go in the golf cart, but we stop lots and get out and walk some.  John tries to keep the trails open enough for the cart to get through.  Right now there is a large tree down in one trail, but maybe somebody will want it for firewood and will move it.  I have one person in mind. 

The last trip there may be the last one for a while, but I was thrilled to see lots of blooming phlox, Rue, Primroses, Virburnum and wild larksboro.  You would have laughed at our dilemma, on our first stop the golf cart quit running and there we were stranded.  Thank goodness John is a good walker, so he came to the house and got the battery cables and lawnmower and tried to get it started, but with no luck.  So after I had walked around and looked all I wanted to, he tells me he is going to pull the cart to the house with the lawnmower and I’m to steer the cart.  Duh!!  First off we had to get the cart turned around and headed out – so that meant two old folks were pushing and turning that cart to and fro, but finally we got it headed in the right direction.  Now he hooks a chain to the front of the cart and back of the mower and away we go.  It was a hoot!!!!!!!!  As he turned the corner to exit the woods and enter the road, his turn was too wide and the chain came off and here I was stranded while he kept going.  It didn’t take long for him to discover his loss and came back for a re-hooking.   We got the sick cart to the shed and there it remains.  John is a mechanic for lots of things, but he doesn’t know much about golf carts, but we have an appointment with someone who does know. This has been a good one and we’ve had it ten or more years.  This is the first time it has been inoperable and we think that’s great.  Anyway, I’ll have to enjoy the plants on this side of the road for a while. 

It’s time to start the vegetable garden and we’ve started trying to harden off the many tomato plants we’ve been tending.  We have so much wind here that when we set them outside the young, tender plants just lay down.  Maybe in a few days things will improve.

This past Sunday being Easter, we thought we could set them outside for a while, but that wind was so cold John opted to bring them back inside. 

All the youngsters at church looked so pretty in their Easter frocks and I looked like January with my winter clothes on, but I was cold.  One young lady on my pew had on a backless dress and she nearly froze me to death and I told her so.  Ha!!  I’ll bet it will be be bad to get old!!  Such is country living.

Note 2014 — Old age is here and it is bad — miss doing the things we used to do such as working in and enjoying the shade garden and wildflowers.

Trillium Flexipes

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Trillium

 It has always been the aim of this writer not to dwell on the negative, but as I sit here in front of this empty screen, today I deviate.  We no longer garden as we did a few years ago and, apparently, it is just as well what with the droughts of recent years.  As you’ve been told numerous times before we only have a well to furnish water and we do enjoy a bath now and then – so we do not (or cannot) water the plants as they need to be watered.

 Early last spring when the Huntsville Botanical Garden was developing a new Trillium Trail I donated lots of corms for them to use.  In digging the corms of my special one, called Grandiflorum, we separated the remaining ones and put them into a new bed.  John also built a new Trillium bed up near the sun porch and we put in lots of different varieties – supposedly for us to enjoy more easily.  Well – what in the world is wrong is more than I can understand.  Is it the cold weather?  Could it be the result of last year’s drought? Maybe we have not had enough rain this winter to do the trick, but anyway the plants are not coming up and if they do they just stand there.  I am heartsick!  It makes me wish I had never allowed the beautiful bed of Grandiflorum to be disturbed; but I thought it was the fair thing to do to share.  At least there are a few plants in the Huntsville Botanical Garden that many people can enjoy for years to come.  

We were so excited to be invited to a special event at the HBG last week.  They honored people who had made donations to their new Trillium Trail and we fit into that category.  One and just one of our plants we donated bloomed for the occasion, but we were thrilled to even see that one strut its stuff.  It was a thrilling day and we saw other gardeners that we seldom see.  Part of that Trail is a memorial garden for a Tennessee gardener that we all dearly loved and enjoyed visiting.  A few years ago she left this world while working in her Trillium garden – just the way she would have wanted it.  The developer and research person, Harold Holmes, did a marvelous speech about the beloved plant and then gave a demonstration about how to propagate.  It’s  educational to just sit and listen to what Harold has to say. Most Trillium grows one to a place; however, mine grow in clusters and he is amazed at that.  Last year he brought one corm here and put in it the ground himself – he wants to see if it clusters here or if it grows singularly.  This will be an interesting experiment – that is if it comes up – so far it is not out of the ground. He goes on rescue missions far and near to dig corms in front of bulldozers and the like.  I’ve forgotten how many different species are in the HBG, but all total there are about 7,000 plants.  When the plants have time to get established that will be a sight to behold in the spring.  If you are at all interested, it would be a trip worth your time and $3.00 gasoline. 

Being so worried about my plants I’ve talked to gardeners in other parts of Alabama about their plants.  My friend in Boaz has about the same problem I have; however, she does have one beautiful blooming plant – but that’s out of many dozens she has in her garden.  A Gardendale gardener is experiencing similar problems, as well.  I wonder if the corms are still in the ground or did they dwindle away without water last fall.  Are they just late in coming up?  We have question after question. 

There were two Trillium varieties I really wanted and I found both in a catalog we received last fall.  The plants were $22.00 each and shipping was to be $19.50.  Wow!!  I deliberated over and over about ordering them.  Should I or should I not?  Finally, I decided just spend more of our children’s inheritance and placed the order.  I eagerly awaited the plants to be shipped in March.  They arrived at the promised time.  That’s what I like about ordering from Plants Delight – they charge more, but they ship good plants and ship when promised.  I was so excited and John and I put the little plants (each with a bloom) in the ground and then left to do an errand.  Would you believe when we returned this blankety, blank dog had eaten one of them!!!!!!  Ugh.  He is driving nails in his coffin and just don’t know it.   I don’t know if we will ever live to get him grown or not, but he has done some more damage.  He definitely is a vegetarian – he eats turnips and cabbage leaves.  John has had to put cages around the young cabbage in the garden to keep him from eating them.  He aspires to do gardening, too, I guess as he digs holes, but never puts anything in them.  Why is he digging? 

 The vegetable garden is underway – John has potatoes, beans and corn in the ground.  We have two freezers that are filled now ant I don’t know where we’ll put anything else, but nevertheless here we go again.

 Gardening is definitely a gamble – we have rolled the dice, but so far this year we have not had the luck we would have liked; however, this is just part of country living.

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Virginia Blue Bells

Note:  Buck’s Pocket has not always been a state park and there are lots of memories of visiting that area.  It’s a gorge and simply beautiful.  It’s said that defeated politicians go to the pocket to recover.  If you haven’t visited Sand Mountain you’ve missed a treat.  Stay tuned — I plan to blog about the mountain and it’s beauty after we have the trees and flora green again.

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Perhaps it was that trip to Buck’s Pocket State Pocket that did it, but the magnetism of the wildflower trail is just too much to resist.  Frustration is the only explanation  – the are so many things I have to do that I can’t do the things I want to do.  Of course, walking or standing on the wildflower trail is at the top of the want-to-do list.

There’s no way we could walk the wonderful trails at the pocket and not stop and study the flora growing there.  Oodles of wildflowers –  a virtual sea of them!  I’ve never seen so many May Apples in one place, along with Solomon’s Seal (both false and otherwise) to say nothing of ferns and trillium with a generous sprinkling of poison ivy.  The spring wildflowers won’t last long and it’s either stop doing everything else to see the show or miss the performance.  I choose not to do the latter.  Usually I try to stay one step ahead of the health department, as far as housekeeping is concerned; but hang the house keeping, let them come on — if they don’t like it, we’ll all leave.

The Windy Knoll wildflower trail, located in my favorite scope of woods, boasts six varieties of trillium and we have just been given a seventh.  A squeal of delight – like a child at Christmas – burst forth when I spotted a cluster of Bellwort, with its perfoliate leaves (perfoliate meaning the stem goes through the leaf) and bells of yellow blooms. Jack-in-the-pulpit is also growing in profusion, both the purple and green-throated varieties.

The trail has never been prettier, but we searched high and low for the Fire Pink, with its crimson blossoms, where it grew last year.  It’s a temperamental plant that doesn’t want the mulch around it and prefers to drop its seeds along side the rocks.  We gave up on our search and when we visited the Botanical Gardens Plant Sale in Huntsville recently, we purchased a new Fire Pink plant.  Later we were thrilled to find the evasive little plant in a new location..  It was not lost at all – but had just moved to a spot more to its liking.

What a joyous afternoon we spent at the plant sale.  Almost any plant one would desire could be found in one of the various tents, but I never dreamed we could find Creeping Fig!  And, suddenly there it was!  A number of years ago, for my birthday, I received a beautiful topiary – it was teddy bear made of sphagnum moss and sprigged with Creeping fig — a delicate little vine with round leaves.  We enjoyed Teddy for a year or more and then I forgot to water him for too long and the vine was dead.  That set off a search, which has lasted for four years.

This new Creeping Fig was also set on a topiary, but it was in the shape of a turtle.  The price was probably too much — but what the heck, it’s only money.  Never mind the cost, I’m happier with this than I would be a mink stole or a Cadillac.  Anyway its too hot for the stole and today the only trip I want to make is down the wagon road in my favorite scope of woods.  I couldn’t use a Cadillac there anyway.

Spring time at the Windy Knoll, wildflowers, jaunts in the woods with the One I Love Best and plant sales, with unexpected finds – this has to one of the best parts of country living.

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Beth and I wanted to take a look in the wildflower area in my favorite scope of woods.  We let the loggers get in deeper than we planned, and it’s heartbreaking to look at the damage.  When John came to the house and found his spouse in tears, he drew a line on the tree cutting and, as a result, saved at least part of the woods just to enjoy.  We both agree that there are some things more important things than money – and my favorite scope of woods is one of them.

We found a beautiful hot-pink blooming flower that I cannot identify to my satisfaction.  Only a little plant called Spring Beauty should be blooming now in the wildflowers and Spring Beauty foliage does not look like the foliage on what we found.  This is part of the fun of wildflowers – the quest for identification.

One true harbinger of spring is the Trailing Trillium, and it’s up and shining.  It’s mottled leaves of green and white rest on the ground and is a thing of beauty.  But how these plants can stand the cold, freezing temperatures is  a mystery to me.

We stopped and admired Mother’s jonquils that have migrated across the road — another pretty sight, but also a reminder of how much my mother loved flowers.  Fresh cut flowers were always on her dining table when they were available.   Now she has a granddaughter, who keeps cut flowers on her desk at work.  It’s interesting how we see the continuance of things passed down through generations.

As we returned to the yard Garfield, the big yellow cat met us.  He has been gone for several days.  Isn’t it strange that “in the spring a young man’s heart turns to love?”  Garfield always comes home bunged up and he needs food and rest.  The last time he came in with a bloody nose, but this time he just looks thin and tired.  I told him he’d better hang around here and rest up because courting was getting too much for him.  He answered with a “meow”, but I think what he was saying was that he didn’t want a lecture, just food.  He does stay around long enough to keep the ladies who live here happy.  It looks  like both our other cats are in a family way.  Oh my, what will we do with another crop of kittens?

As we look at the greening herb bed and perennial beds, I’m reminded of how much work there is to be done there, too.  “There’s no rest for the weary and the wicked want none.”  That will have to wait for another day.  Company, cats and work – that’s country living.

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White Quince

Trillium – Pusillum

John’s fancy electronic rain gauge/thermometer read 15 degrees this morning.  Wow!!  That was 10 degrees below the predicted reading.

We had lots of hydrangeas budding out and I can only imagine what they look like this morning.  Many of those bloom on old wood and we’ll probably have few, if any, blooms this year.  Last year was a wonderful year for the hydrangeas and we had oodles of blossoms.  Guess we shouldn’t expect success every year.

My good friend who is a professional photographer and I had planned for several days to get good pictures of the shade garden plants, but one thing after another came up and we kept putting it off.  Well, yesterday he came in the freezing weather and he and John rode the golf cart to “glory land.”  When I was there last week it was absolutely beautiful, but they found a few things already going out.

I am especially fond of the tiniest trillium — the pusillum. (It’s only about three inches tall at maturity). I have two varieties — one is Alabamensis and the other Virginianum.  The Virginia Bluebell was still pretty and the white flowering quince was really strutting its stuff.

There were oodles of Columbine plants up last week, but they come up from seed, so this weather probably means they’re gone for good.

Hellebores were still very showy and since they are cold weather plants, they are still in good shape, I’m sure.

I love riding over there in the golf cart and oohing and aahing, but this time I”ll dread going, but anxious to see what the damage has been.  This, too, is part of country living.

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Hellebore

Where to begin this article escapes me.  This afternoon The One I Love Best dragged other “stuff” out of the way of the golf cart and offered me a ride.  It was as though I had died and gone to heaven.  Our woods are ablaze with color.  The pictures I made are not top quality; however, I’ve asked a professional to come by and shoot a few shots.  (Yeah, a few).

A good many years ago we bought Hellebores and set them in various spots around the shade garden and by now the blooms have gone to seed and produced babies galore.  I dare say there are a million Hellebores scattered around the woods  in different colors and mixed in with Daffodils of various kinds.

Trillium and Dutchmen’s Britches

The most exciting thing for me was all the different wildflowers that are up!  Several different varieties of Trillium are strutting their stuff.  The Cuneatum Trillium is absolutely gorgeous — one plant is mixed in with Dutchmen’s Britches and Toothwort and is stunning.  I could sit there and drink in that beauty and remember when I almost lost the Dutchmen’s Britches, but it moved itself to another location.  The tiny blossoms — blooming up a stem — look just like a pair of Dutchmen’s britches.

Nearby the Dutchmen’s Britches is a patch of yellow Trout Lilies — I’ve never had so many blooming before.  Usually I’d have one or maybe three.  I said I’ll bet Buck’s Pocket State Park is yellow with these little beauties.  At the park the ground is literally covered at this time of year.

Trillium – Stamenium

If you enjoy spring wildflowers, stay tuned — there’ll be more and better pictures.  I wish you all could drive by our woods and see the beauty.  It’s breathtaking (at least to me).  Maybe the hard winter we’ve had makes this sight even prettier.  It’s absolutely the very best part of country living.

Hellebores

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The day progressed with a pop-in visit of two friends – one local and one from Birmingham. What a delight the Birmingham friend is – always up, smiling, talkative and full of life.  She is a good cook, a seamstress, she tats, she knows about plants and birds – a real Southern Lady and definitely my kind of person.  I told them they had made my day; however, I did not know what was just ahead.

John was not yet through with his job of running the bush hog on the lower property and his episode made the day special.  As I was catching up on a new quilt magazine, John came to the porch and said, “I need you to drive the truck – I have the tractor hung up on a stump.”  Now our southern most acreage is a long way from the house and I was delighted to get to ride.  We have always called this property Lower Sobobia – LS.  On the way we meandered along and enjoyed looking at the herd and talking about which cow would be calving next and which calf belonged to which mama — a pretty sight to a farmer and his wife.

When we arrived in LS we had to ford a little stream – a tributary to nearby Skirum Creek – and it was slick.  With all the spinning and whatever my first thought was that here we are stuck and the tractor is at the top of the hill hung on a stump.  After some twisting and spinning, John got the truck across and up the hill.  With chain, cable and wench he managed to free the tractor and all the while I was looking at the wonderful late summer wildflowers.

The Sweet Joe Pye Weed must be six feet tall; it’s purple and covered with yellow butterflies.  We parked in a patch of Goldenrod – not the common variety – it’s about a waist high and blooms all the way up the stem.  Boneset along with Helianthus looked like a flower arrangement one might see on a dining table or even in a church urn– a delightful sight, indeed.  With the tractor freed, I asked John to drive the truck back across the stream which he did, but it was spinning and would not pull up the steep hill – so I was called back to drive the truck while he pushed with the tractor!! It was something else!

As I drove home past the house-site at the Cook Place, I stopped to enjoy the old field-stone chimney now capped with Virginia Creeper.  What a way to end the day.  Nothing like it — its country living.

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I don’t think I’ve seen as much Goldenrod as there is this year — it’s everywhere and its beautiful!  When I had a wildflower garden in Georgia I had three different varieties; however, here I only have one.  As we ride along the road I’m almost positive that I see a second variety, but walkers don’t do well plodding around looking for such.  Thanks goodness for memories though of when I traipsed the woods and fields.  We went ahead of bulldozers in the Atlanta area digging wildflowers.  What a pleasure to rescue them and what a pleasure to be able to remember.  The following is Georgia Market Bulletin’s article about Goldenrod.  Don’t miss seeing all the beautiful fall wildflowers — this is really country living.

Goldenrod

What is Goldenrod?

The Goldenrod that is blooming now along highways and in fields is an old friend to many of us and annual enemy to hay fever sufferers.  It is doubtful that many people want to have Goldenrod in their flower garden, although it is truly a beautiful autumn flower with rich color and feathery blossoms.

However, according to Mrs. Marjorie J. Dietz, author of Favorite Wildflowers, Goldenrod is not the culprit responsible for hay fever; the villain being Ragweed which usually grows right alongside the lovely Goldenrod.  If Mrs. Dietz is correct, many home gardeners might like to add this clumpy, upright plant to their home landscape for fall color.

Most Goldenrods are sun lovers although some species make pretty patches in open woodlands.  A few, mostly those native to the mountains, are compact enough for rock gardens and retaining-wall use.  Most are best in informal sunny borders in meadows, at the edge of woodlands, along drives, and in short, where nature put them in the first place.

The small ray-and-disk flowers are yellow and gold and are packed close together in panicles or racemes. They bloom continually through late summer and fall.  The foliage of these plants varies greatly but most have numerous leaves which are sometimes coarse.

Goldenrod is easy to grow and will tolerate the poorest of soil.  The flowers are especially long-lasting.  Most Goldenrods perfectly fit the description of a weed; a plant out of place.  They self-sow, but seedlings and mature plants are easy to pull up by hand.

The species most common to our area is the Solidago canadensis.  This perennial is native from Newfoundland to Florida.  It needs full sun and is too tall for all but special situations such as along fences of at the edge of woods.

Goldenrod

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For some time, each week the Georgia Market Bulletin printed a column about plants and titled them”What Is –.”  It was a most informative column and my older friend cut those articles out and pasted them in a scrapbook. (I wish I knew what kind of glue she used.  At one time there was a paste-like substance called “Musilage”, but sometimes people mixed flour and water together to use).  Right now the Boneset is in bloom and I thought it the right time to share one of the old columns.  The pictures you see were taken in our neighbor’s pasture and would you believe now he has sprayed this beauty with Round Up?  I’m just sick — but he said it had his fence shorted out and it was allowing the cows to just walk out.  Duh!

Boneset

Boneset – Eupatorium perfoliatum, sometimes called Indian sage and feverwort, is a coarse, stout herb growing from three to six feet high.  It is rank-smelling with pointed leaves and dense flat-topped clusters of white flowers.  It has long been cultivated as a domestic remedy.

To one whose childhood was spent in the country some fifty years ago the name or sight of this plant brings unpleasant memories.  The attic or woodshed was hung with bunches of the dried herb, which served as a warning against wet feet, or over-exposure which might result in cold or malaria.  When one of these catastrophes happened, a certain nauseous concoction called “boneset” tea was poured down the throat — as a certain nemesis.

Although the Indians first discovered its virtues — naming the plant ague weed, it is possibly one of the few herbs whose efficacy has not been overrated.  Dr. Millspaugh says: “It is prominently adapted to cure a disease peculiar to the South, known as break-bone fever (Dengue), and it is without doubt from this property that the name boneset was derived.”  Dengue is an acute infectious disease characterized by sudden onset of headache, racking joint pains and rash — transmitted by mosquitoes.

So much for the Market Bulletin article.  As you move around the countryside this fall don’t miss seeing Boneset in open fields, pastures or even on the roadside  — it’s a stand out.  Fall wildflowers are beautiful and so different from the ones we see in the spring — don’t miss seeing them.  Enjoying wildflowers is one of the most enjoyable parts of country living.

eset Cluster

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Cone Flower

Join me and let’s take a walk.  It’s 9:00 o’clock a.m. so that’s the reason for the sun and glare and on top of that I’m not a photographer.  Forgive me for not stating the botanical names of these plants — in my younger days I could spit them out right and left, but no more.  The aging process does strange things.  But. . . .

In the front yard, the first stop is the Cone Flower — this is one of my favorites and it reseeds well and next year there’ll be separating to do.  I had a huge bed here last year, but the man with the sprayer got lose and you know the rest of the story.  Oh well, next year maybe.

Fountain Grass

Coming around the corner is the Fountain Grass — its such a nice plant — I love the gentle swaying in the wind of this soft plume.  This plant cannot winter over here on Sand Mountain, so in the fall we dig it and take it inside.  We have a spot in the basement for plants to winter over.  Most times Fountain Grass will multiply and can be separated and then you’ll have more than one plant next year.

Porter Weed

Porter Weed was written up in Southern Living Magazine some years back and I almost wore the computer out trying to find the plant. It’s a Florida wildflower.  They said it was a favorite of Hummingbirds, but I disagree.  There are different colors, but this one is purple. This plant will not make it through our winters and has to go inside; but as far as I’m concerned, it’s special enough for the extra trouble.

Tiny Red Salvia

This tiny little salvia is hardy and comes back year after year — notice Jerry in the background playing with Fountain Grass leaves as they sway in the breeze.

Four O’clock

The yellow Four O’clock is an old flower that’s been here since I was a child.  We used to say it opens at four o’clock, but that is not the case.  It does bloom later in the day; however, this one has been open all night.

Lantana

Lantana — the pink and yellow bloom one — is almost a pest here.  It reseeds steadily and always comes up in the wrong spot.  This one stands where I want to put a Lime Light Hydrangea because it is in almost full sun.  Later in the fall we dig this one and toss it on the junk pile.

Salvia Guaranetica

Now we’ve arrived at the Salvia Guaranetica.  This plants blooms early in the spring and is a favorite of the Hummingbird because of it’s cone shaped flowers.  In this case we cut the plant back about half way in mid July and now it has put out new growth and will furnish the Hummers nectar as they prepare for their long flight south.

Mexican Sage Close Up

The next stop is the Mexican Sage — also in the Salvia family — and it grows quite tall as you can see.  This variety has white in the center of the bloom when it’s completely open.  It’s not quite there yet.  I have another variety that has no white, grows shorter and blooms a little later.

Look at the red Pineapple Sage — it, too, is in the Salvia Family — and the Hummingbirds love it because it also has a tiny cone shaped flower.  Gardening and/or wildflowers has to be some of the best of country living.

Pineapple Sage

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