A year of flowers #69: Douglas' knotweed

 

Polygonum douglasii

It turns out to be very difficult to get a photo of this flower, because it's so tiny that the camera assumes I must be trying to photograph something else.  I don't know what I did to get it to focus this once, but I'd better declare victory and post it.  This is another plant that just showed up, that I suspected (correctly) was a native.  

I have been writing about our weird drought and epic "heat bubble," and it has been interesting to just let things go out there, and we'll see what survives.  Another flower that I won't be able to post is the Jessica's asters--I have a couple of monster plants, but no blooms this year.  I threw some water at them but they don't seem to be interested.  Maybe they'll do something.  Still, many plants are proceeding as though it's just another year, a bit drier and hotter but... fine... Here are next year's Scarlet gilia that seem not to be perturbed by the conditions.

 

In fact, overall, the prairie is certainly dry, but it looks OK.  It's just August out there several weeks early...

A year of flowers #68: Snowberry

Symphoricarpos albus

Actual snowberries are white (hence the name), but the bloom is this lovely pink.  They were on the property when I came here in 1991, among the native roses in the north fence row, and in a clump next to the front porch.  We decided to plant something more civilized in that spot beside the porch (Clematis got the nod), and we dug up every chunk of snowberry out of that location, planting anything that had hairy roots attached.  There was a LOT, but we dug up all of it, and even got the stragglers the next year, moving it out to various spots in the prairie where it has thrived and is welcome to spread, which is good because, like the Wood's rose, they definitely like to spread. 

A year of flowers #67: Canada goldenrod

   

Solidago canadensis

Canada goldenrod was an early success for me in the prairie.  I bought the original plant from a guy selling natives at the Moscow Farmers' Market in the 90s, and it has grown over the years into a substantial patch, though its seeds have not inspired any offspring elsewhere, unlike the Missouri goldenrod here (which is just starting to bloom).  This early and epic heat and drought continues to batter newer plants that I sure hope come back, but established plants are doing great.  The Ponderosa pines, with their roots down on the water table (we aren't far from bedrock here) are going nuts--they seem to be growing as I watch.  And of course, the tomatoes in the vegetable garden are having a party.  But the younger plants are backing off, and it will be interesting to see how things go next year.

A year of flowers #65 & #66: Fool's onion and Sugar bowls

 

Triteleia hyacinthina

 

Clematis hirsutissima

 

Over the last few posts, I have been singing a lament over our historic heat wave.  One of those paintbrushes, about which I was recently so proud, has shriveled up, brown... A heartleaf arnica plant that had made a comeback this year (but it hasn't bloomed yet, so I didn't include it in my posts), something chomped it and the remainder went brown.  I am hopeful that these plants have just decided to sit this one out and try again next year.  We'll see.  I was watering every few weeks until now, but I think I need to let things be.

The two flowers shown here are photographs that I took about this time last year.  This year the plants themselves are doing fine, nice and green, but they did not deliver their blooms this year.  I assume it is because of the bizarre weather.  The Triteleia was a gift, probably from the birds, showing up years ago underneath a young pine tree.  For years I would only see the leaves and then three years ago, I had a bloom!  Quite a few bloomed last year in that spot.  My native-plant book does not show this growing in Whitman County, but here it is.  If you compare it to the other Triteleia I posted, you can see the resemblance--palouserivermusic.douglasbrodiaea Also, if you compare it to native alliums, you can see how it got its common name--Fool's onion.  palouserivermusic.tapertiponion

The Clematis was a rescue.  My friend Diane called me four years ago, having seen this plant growing in the gravel beside the road.  No other natives nearby--just wheat.  How this plant was able to eke out an existence there is a mystery.  A crew was grating the road, and we got the plant out not long before everything in that area was ripped out of the ground by the equipment.  The clump split into two plants and both are doing fine.  But no blooms this year.

A year of flowers #64: Fireweed

 

 

Chamerion angustifolium

 

I have been watching the blooms unfold on my fireweed for several days now, taking a photo every day, and waiting to see when the heat-wave-death-bubble will at last leave us alone.  It mostly has moved on, but plants are suffering.  It appears to me to look like mid-July out there now, and a lot of plants have wilted.  Today, though a few more buds have opened up, the bloom was starting to wilt from the bottom, so yesterday's shot will have to do.  I have two vigorous fireweed plants next to each other here.  One came from my neighbors down the road, and the other from my friend Charlotte.

A year of flowers #63: Oregon checkermallow

 

Sidalcea oregana

We are in the midst of a weirdly-epic heat wave here in the Northwest.  Today is supposed to get up to 107º, which is not the sort of temperature we are used to seeing around here in late June.  Honestly, 107º is unusual for August.  I notice that some flowers are thrilled by the heat (the Scarlet gilia is exploding out there), but others, like this Oregon checkermallow, are wilting a bit.  This plant has been very successful here, though.  I bought a couple of small plants in 2014, as well as some seed, and they've seemed very happy here.  But today?--not so much.

A year of flowers #62: Grand collomia

   

Collomia grandiflora

This is an annual flower, native to most of the Pacific Northwest. Jim Roberts first alerted me to it, since a few scrawny ones try to scrape out an existence in the rocky conditions out by North River Road, coming out to our corner of Palouse.  The combination of the peaches-and-cream orange with the little pale blue anthers inside the flower is striking.  All of my Collomia came from seed from Thorn Creek Native Seeds, but now I get enough to spread from my own supply.  I have recommended Thorn Creek as a source elsewhere, but in a project like this, it has been great to be able to buy some seeds from a trusted source that you know is indeed, all local.  All of Jacie Jensen's (the owner of Thorn Creek) seeds are from native plants that grew on her family farm on the aptly-named Paradise Ridge just south of Moscow, ID.  Without people like Jacie, Jim, and Charlotte, I can't imagine having been able to do this work.