What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 41: narrow leaf evening primrose plus a few flowering updates

NOTE: I confirmed this with out wonderful county extension agent, Debbie Roos. It is definitely narrow leaf evening primrose. Happy to have her as a resource. She’s the queen of pollinator gardens!

This came up early in April and has been a mystery to me. I don’t remember planting it, can’t find any notes about it, but where it is and the way it’s come up can’t be a volunteer planting. It has red stems, which seems unusual and really, I do NOT remember planting anything like that last fall. I have waited until it bloomed to see if that helped me identify it. Here it is.

It’s lovely! I suspect it is the fireworks variety of narrow leaf evening primrose, but I can’t say this for certain. If anyone knows, please let me know! I always put the plant tags in the ground with the plants but I can’t find one here. Did I get it at NC Botanical Garden? The farmers’ market on plant day when the local native plant nurseries bring plants? I really have no idea.

I’ve done a little digging and will nail this down but for now I’m calling it a day. :)

A few flowering updates.

I know it’s hard to see in this full sun photo, but the third baptisia is blooming now in the midst of the golden Alexanders. 

And the yellow pitcher plants are really coming in now.

Happy to see the garden rolling along as we move into May!

More info on narrow leaf evening primrose:

Oenothera fruticosa 

Common Name(s):

• Narrow-leaf Evening Primrose
• Southern Sundrops
• Sundrops

Phonetic Spelling

oh-no-THER-ah froo-tih-KOH-sah

Description

Sundrops is a native, perennial, erect, day-flowering member of the evening primrose family. It is native to all parts of North Carolina except the high mountains, where although it is striking when seen along roadsides and in meadows, it never achieves the beauty possible under cultivation. It is also found in dry forests, glades, and rock outcrops. 

Sundrops prefers moderately fertile, dry, well-drained soil in full sun but will tolerate some shade. Good winter drainage is essential. It can spread quickly in ideal situations but isn't terribly aggressive. The yellow flowers are short-lived but they occur in a succession over a long period. In the south, the rosettes will be purplish-green throughout the winter.

Use this plant in hot dry places as wild gardens, rock gardens, erosion control on banks, meadows, native plant areas or cottage gardens. This plant was named the 1989 NC Wildflower of the Year. Var. microcarpa can be found in boggy depressions. Var unguilata is found in sandhills and moist/wet savannas.

Insects, Diseases, and Other Plant Problems: No serious insect or disease problems. 

Cultivars / Varieties:

• ‘African Sun’
  Rounded compact habit
• ‘Cold Crick’
  More compact
• 'Fireworks'
  Bronze foliage, red stems and buds, yellow flowers

What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 40: American beautyberry

Since I pointed it out in the last featured plant post, I’ll go ahead and feature the American beautyberry today. It’s a striking plant when the berries form! I read today that the foliage is loved by whitetail deer, so keep that in mind if you plant it. Our beautyberry is inside our fenced farm, and since we put up the 3-board with woven wire fencing, the deer are no longer coming onto the main area of the farm. Some days I miss them, but they are still in Arcadia and move daily along our fence lines, so still very much present.

Right now the beautyberry is blending in with its neighbor, the buttonbush, but once it comes out all the way and especially when both are blooming, the difference is very clear. The berries the beautyberry forms are an extravagant deep fuchsia that really pops in the garden.

Leander, Bruce 

Callicarpa americana

Callicarpa americana L.

American Beautyberry , French Mulberry

Verbenaceae (Verbena Family)

Synonym(s): Callicarpa americana var. lactea

USDA Symbol: caam2

USDA Native Status: L48 (N)

American beauty-berry most often grows 3-5 ft. tall and usually just as wide, It can reach 9 ft. in height in favorable soil and moisture conditions. It has long, arching branches and yellow-green fall foliage, but its most striking feature is the clusters of glossy, iridescent-purple fruit (sometimes white) which hug the branches at leaf axils in the fall and winter. Bark light brown on the older wood, reddish brown on younger wood. Bark smooth, with elongate, raised corky areas (lenticels); twigs round to 4 sided, covered with branched hairs visible under a l0x hand lens. Leaves in pairs or in threes, blades half as wide as long and up to 9 inches long, ovate to elliptic, pointed or blunt at the tip and tapered to the base; margins coarsely toothed except toward the base and near the tip, teeth pointed or rounded; lower surface of young leaves covered with branched hairs. Flowers small, pink, in dense clusters at the bases of the leaves, clusters usually not exceeding the leaf petioles. Fruit distinctly colored, rose pink or lavender pink, berrylike, about 1/4 inch long and 3/16 inch wide, in showy clusters, persisting after the leaves have fallen. 

The seeds and berries are important foods for many species of birds, particularly the Northern Bobwhite. Foliage is a favorite of White-tailed Deer.

November Hill farm journal, 98

Time for a whole farm update. We had a huge rain this week and everything is growing like mad as a result. The grass in the backyard is close to 2 feet tall! Unfortunately when we created the cat-safe fencing, we made it impossible to let the equines in, which we used to do instead of proper mowing. They loved it. One day we’ll fix the gates so they can come in again, but for now, the mower is going to come in and tame the jungle.

The mower! It came home from getting a new starter and already mowed the buttercup patches in the big barnyard. Today I’m taking it to the patch in the back pasture, and then I desperately need to harrow the arena.

That will still leave the front pasture and Salina’s Paddock with their buttercup patches, but we’ll get to it probably tomorrow.

We also need to open up Echo hive and see how much room they have and if they need a super with empty frames on top.

The pieces of hive #3 arrived this week and I have to make the final decision where to place both Artemis hive and this new yet unnamed one. I’ve decided to move Artemis due to dampness in its vicinity after large rainfall. We’re still pondering putting the new hive in the potager. It will be in closer proximity to us and to the horses, but given what we see down at Arcadia, I don’t think it will be a problem.

In other news, we had a birthday this week. The cake was spectacular! Our local bakery has curbside service and we were able to get this raspberry-lemonade cake home perfectly intact thanks to their method of packaging and prep. That’s a lemur on top!

Yesterday while taking the dogs on a romp, I snapped a few photos of some of the wildflowers growing in our side strip. Years back I sowed a package of wildflower seed. It’s possible they are not all native to NC, but since I do see pollinators foraging them, I’ll leave them for now. They are very pretty and we don’t mow that strip until everything is done blooming.

That’s it for this week on November Hill. I started a remote writing workshop on Thursday that runs for six weeks, called Writing In The Dark, and already have a new mini-essay to show for it. Elephant Rock Retreats is a wonderful resource for serious writers. I can’t say enough good things about Jeannine Ouellette’s teaching. Gift yourself one of her workshops. I promise you won’t regret it!

What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 39: white wood aster

I had the dogs with me today and every time I tried to go into my beds to get a photo they wanted to follow, so I ended up taking a driveway photo of this white wood aster in my front-most shade bed. I started planting this bed last year but then stopped, as we had a young and rambunctious golden girl who discovered the art of digging. The temptation was too great for her then, so I started my second shady bed (for some reason not interesting to her) and will get back to this one in the fall.

Right now there are only a few things in it. This white wood aster is one of them.

I love the heart-shaped leaves and the white asters will be pretty in this shaded bed, beneath 3 oaks and a dogwood tree.

More info:

urybia divaricata 

Common Name(s):

 

• White Heart-leaved Aster
• White Star Aster
• White Wood Aster
• Wood Aster

Previously known as:

 

• Aster corymbosus
• Aster divaricatus
• Eurybia divaricata
• Symphyotrichum divaricatum

Phonetic Spelling

yoor-RIB-ee-uh dy-vair-ih-KAY-tus

Description

Eurybia divaricata, or White Wood Aster, is a herbaceous perennial native to the Eastern United States that typically grows wild in dry open woods primarily in Appalachian mountain areas. It prefers partial shade with 3-4 hrs of sun daily in average medium to dry well-drained soils. It is shade, deer and drought tolerant. The showy white flowers appear in clusters in late summer to fall and are a favorite of bees and butterflies. Its seeds are eaten by birds and small mammals. White Wood Asters can grow to a height of 3 feet and spreads vigorously by rhizomes. Shearing the plant to 6 inches in early summer produces a more compact plant.

Use this plant in open shade gardens, woodland areas, native plant or cottage gardens. It is a tough native plant that blooms in the shade and that can be hard to find!. You can propagate this plant by division in the spring. It will reach its full growth in 2 to 5 years.

Diseases, Insects, and Other Plant Problems:

This plant has some susceptibility to powdery mildew so give it good air circulation. Aster wilt can also be an occasional problem, particularly if plants are grown in poorly-drained clay soils.

What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 38: buttonbush (and new garden dreaming aside)

We’re having a lot of rain today so this is taken from the laundry room window. While I took the photo, a hummingbird passed by, and a squirrel ran across the garden and up a tree across the driveway. Neither were caught by the camera!

This buttonbush is a wonderful addition to the garden. The flowers are very unique and pollinators love them. The bush right in front of the buttonbush is an American beauty berry, and I’ve likely made a big mistake planting these two so close together. I’m not sure where to move the beauty berry to yet, so for now, it’s growing where it was planted.

I have a very large new bed awaiting creation in the front yard. Last spring we moved the grass paddock (also known as Salina’s Paddock) back to create space for a new pollinator bed. I had planned to put in plants in the fall, but life got busy and I didn’t get to it. For now, it has one butterfly bush, a sweet gum tree, beloved by the goldfinches, and a very active bluebird box. It may be the beauty berry will move to that new space as a centerpiece plant.

Back to the buttonbush - they are plants who love big rain events and are recommended for rain gardens. This corner of the terraced beds can have a large water flow when we get a lot of rain, so along with a hand-dug drainage ditch that leads to an underground pipe for overflow, the buttonbush roots are now securing that corner.

I’ll likely use buttonbush in a couple of other areas on the farm where rain run-off is an issue.

More info:

Marcus, Joseph A. 

Cephalanthus occidentalis

Cephalanthus occidentalis L.

Common Buttonbush, Buttonbush, Button Willow

Rubiaceae (Madder Family)

Synonym(s): Cephalanthus occidentalis var. californicus, Cephalanthus occidentalis var. pubescens

USDA Symbol: ceoc2

USDA Native Status: L48 (N), CAN (N)

Common buttonbush is a multi-stemmed shrub which grows 6-12 ft. or occasionally taller. Leaves in pairs or in threes, petiolate; bladeup to 8 inches long, ovate to narrower, sometimes 1/3 or less as wide as long, with a pointed tip and rounded to tapered base, smooth margins and glossy upper surface, lower surface duller. Glossy, dark-green leaves lack significant fall color. Flowers small, borne in distinctive, dense, spherical clusters (heads) with a fringe of pistils protruded beyond the white corollas. Long-lasting, unusual blossoms are white or pale-pink, one-inch globes. Subsequent rounded masses of nutlets persist through the winter. Trunks are often twisted. Spreading, much-branched shrub or sometimes small tree with many branches (often crooked and leaning), irregular crown, balls of white flowers resembling pincushions, and buttonlike balls of fruit. 

Buttonbush is a handsome ornamental suited to wet soils and is also a honey plant. Ducks and other water birds and shorebirds consume the seeds.