What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 35: obedient plant (plus two extremely colorful asides)

While looking through books trying to identify the threadleaf bluestar, I noticed the obedient plant and thought to myself, why haven’t I put that in anywhere? I made a mental note to do so in the fall. Then while out looking for today’s featured plant, I was standing in the dappled shade bed and couldn’t remember what one grouping was. I checked the marker. Bingo! Obedient plant!

I haven’t started on my shady beds yet but I can’t resist the synchronicity. The three obedient plants I planted last fall are coming up and looking very nice. They get afternoon sun, dappled by the overhanging trees, and I think when they mature they’ll be very pretty there.

Look for more info at the bottom of this post, but I also can’t resist showing off my new garden cart. We have wheelbarrows at the barn and a dedicated haybarrow, but I’ve been using an old cracked water bucket to put weeds into when I’m working in the beds, or just walking them over to the brush piles over and over again.

I used this cart today and it was so nice to be able to go at the weeds and dump them all at the end. Plus I love purple and this just makes me happy.

And, as if this colorful cart isn’t enough, yesterday I put a second coat of bright fuchsia milk paint on Artemis hive and when I took the top off to get started, found this gorgeous but slightly alien-like creature sitting there. I learned today that its common name is Eyed Elater or Eyed Click Beetle. Supposedly it can click itself and pop 5-6 feet into the air. I assure you if it had done that yesterday,  I would have spilled another container of milk paint! Thankfully it was very calm and kept me company most of the time I painted.

It was nearly 2 inches long.

More info on the obedient plant:

Cressler, Alan 

Physostegia virginiana

Physostegia virginiana (L.) Benth.

Fall Obedient Plant, False Dragonhead, Virginia Lions-heart

Lamiaceae (Mint Family)

Synonym(s): 

USDA Symbol: phvi8

USDA Native Status: L48 (N), CAN (N)

4 ft. stems which frequently grow in clumps and bear long, lanceolate leaves and a 4-6 in., terminal spikes of pink to lavender, tubular flowers. Opposite, pinkish flowers in a spike-like cluster along upper part of a square stem. The perennial’s long-lasting flowers have five triangular lobes, two forming an upper lip and three forming a lower lip. 

This attractive plant is snapdragon-like, but its square stem is typical of the mint family. If the flowers are bent, they tend to stay in the new position for a while, hence the common name Obedient Plant. Several garden forms occasionally escape to the wild. Flowers can be swivelled into new positions where they stay obediently. (Ontario Native Plants 2002)

What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 34: threadleaf bluestar

This plant defied identification and it’s taken me a few days to sit down and research it. Its name tag in the garden has been lost and I couldn’t find my notebook that has my original planting design plan. It was a good exercise in using some books and online databases to figure it out.

I also can’t remember where I purchased it - though I think probably the NC Botanical Garden sale. My sources for plants all sell natives only, so this makes me think it has been found someplace in NC.

It turns out this is an uncommon variation of eastern bluestar, found in Oklahoma and Arkansas, so it’s a US native, but I can’t find anything that says it’s a NC native. It’s listed as a vulnerable plant globally due to its rarity.

In any case, it’s a lovely plant, blooming now and the leaves turn a lovely color in the fall, so it has multi-seasonal interest in the garden bed. The thin leaves add a nice texture to the garden, too.

Here it is today:

It takes up this entire corner of the bed and is growing beautifully in the garden.

More info:

Amsonia hubrichtii 

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Plant of Merit

Common Name: blue star 

Type: Herbaceous perennial

Family: Apocynaceae

Native Range: South-central United States

Zone: 5 to 8

Height: 2.00 to 3.00 feet

Spread: 2.00 to 3.00 feet

Bloom Time: April to May

Bloom Description: Powdery blue

Sun: Full sun to part shade

Water: Medium

Maintenance: Low

Suggested Use: Rain Garden

Flower: Showy

Leaf: Good Fall

Attracts: Butterflies

Tolerate: Deer

Garden locations

Culture

Easily grown in average, medium, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade. Best fall foliage color usually occurs in full sun, but flowers generally last longer if given some afternoon shade in hot sun areas. Stems tend to open up and flop in too much shade, however. Consider cutting back the stems by about 6" after flowering to help keep stems upright and to shape plants into a nice foliage mound.

Noteworthy Characteristics

Amsonia hubrichtii, commonly called bluestar, Arkansas amsonia or Hubricht's amsonia, is an uncommon perennial that is native to the Ouachita Mountains in central Arkansas. It is very similar in appearance to the Missouri native Amsonia ciliata, except the leaves of A. hubrichtii are more narrow and thread-like and the emerging foliage lacks conspicuous hairiness. An erect, clump-forming plant that is primarily grown in cultivation for its blue spring flowers, feathery green summer foliage and golden fall color. Powdery blue, 1/2" star-like flowers appear in terminal clusters in late spring atop stems rising to 3' tall. Feathery, soft-textured, needle-like, alternate leaves are bright green in spring and summer, but turn bright gold in autumn. From a distance plants have an almost lily-like appearance.
Specific epithet honors Leslie Hubricht who first discovered it growing in the wild in the early 1940s.

Genus name honors 18th-century Virginian physician Dr. Charles Amson.

Specific epithet honors Leslie Hubricht who first discovered it growing in the wild in the early 1940s.

Problems

No serious insect or disease problems. Plants may flop, particularly if not cut back after flowering.

Garden Uses

Borders, rock gardens, native plant garden, cottage garden or open woodland area. Best when massed.

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What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 33: Joe Pye weed (and a favorite garden view)

Joe Pye weed is one of my favorites in the pollinator beds, feathery, tall, muted color, and lasts a long time. It also gets VERY tall and while I had originally put it in the center of the front bed, where it actually did well and looked lovely, by summer’s end it was laying prone on top of other shorter things and I realized it needed a different spot in the garden.

Late in the fall I moved the Joe Pye to the trellis wall in the back of the bed. I get tired of that white grid pattern being so prominent visually and I’m hoping the Joe Pye will like the intense full sun that area gets in the summer.

Given that the plants were dormant by the time I moved them, I wasn’t sure what would happen come spring, but here they are:

They can still fall forward, but I can use the trellis to attach a line across if needed, or I can learn a lesson and cut these very tall growing plants back mid-season so they bloom but don’t just go up and up and up.

If you see me posting photos of goldenrod in the lower bed over 3 feet tall please remind me of this.

Yesterday I was in the garden and glanced up - capturing one of my favorite garden views. I have little stone pathways that wind through the beds, mostly so I can get in easily to weed, but also because there are angles for viewing that make my eyes and heart sing. My beds are mostly for the pollinators and birds, it’s true, but they also serve as space to stop and ponder the beauty they offer. I try to stand and enjoy them this way for a portion of every chore time I spend in them. It is like taking a long cool sip of water on a very hot day.

This is one of my favorite views, and it’s only visible while the baptisia are blooming. There are other flowering plants that will come when these fade, but today, right now, this is what I love looking at:

The baptisia tall and white and purple, reaching up to the sun, the bluebird box, the green of the foliage and the brown earth, the silvery gray path and driveway curving to the distant gateway. It’s a story, a little journey, to what is beyond that curve, what the gate opens to. I could stand here all day and just ponder those questions.

Happy Birthday Little Man and Keil Bay!

I cannot believe it but Little Man is now 20 and Keil Bay is 31 years old. We had a party in the grass paddock again as that proved to be a popular way to celebrate for this herd.

The donka boys were beside me so they were at the party but just not in the photo.

Couple of interesting things on the farm today.

Coyote in Arcadia (photo by husband):

And the first coneflower of 2020:

Happy birthday to the boys - we love you! You are both amazing and bring so much joy to all of us.

November Hill farm journal, 97

Time for a whole farm update. We are in jungle mode now, with all our large trees fully leafed out and lush, green, and happy just in time for Earth Day.

I spent some time yesterday walking the farm and looking at what’s happening outside my pollinator beds.

In the riding arena (and now also dog agility course) I found this very long and beautiful snake skin stretched along the ground. I feel sure it’s a black snake and if I’m lucky he/she has moved into the barn and was out here sunning before shedding.

In Poplar Folly, one of the trees that Duke Energy cut. We’ve left the remainders, some of which is stacked for firewood, some larger sections I’d hoped to get made into lumber for our feed room, have been repurposed in creating terraces to slow rain run-off. There are several of these stump stacks which are making unusual and interesting “sculptures” - and growing various lichens which I’ve been reading are like medicine for various bees.

My tree of life flags are fading but still hanging in the breeze. I put these up when Duke first notified us that they intended to cut not only the 7 trees we allowed them to take down, but approximately 40 more. The entirety of Poplar Folly would be decimated had we not filed a complaint with the NC Utilities Commission and stopped them.

Here’s a tulip poplar branch in the front pasture, simply loaded with flowers!

While on my walk I had a wild hair and added a new element for the dog agility course. Green duct tape has a higher calling! Why I never did this when we were making jumps for horses I can’t tell you.

And an interesting tree stump in Poplar Folly. One trunk but clearly two separate trees that at some point merged. I love the pattern from above.

And a gorgeous patch of native ferns on the side strip in front. We have ferns volunteering all over the farm, and we leave them untouched. This is a new strip that has come up this spring and are thriving. I need to get out my books and see if I can ID this one. We have different kinds, and all are distinct and different when you look closely. If you look really closely, you’ll also see a baby tulip poplar and a couple of hollies.

I hope everyone spent at least a little time on Earth Day out in nature, or looking at photographs of nature. The earth is our home, and she’s beautiful. She gives solace and shelter, food and air, water and peace. We must take care of her.