Wild Flower Entry

[ravensgarden]

I have been pleasantly surprised by the wildflowers that are still surviving on the property, despite it being scrapped clean over most of it.

When I came here, I wanted to make sure that the natural NATIVE wild flowers that Arkansas is known for were prevalent on my property. I have been four months trying to find seeds.

Unfortunately, most of the internet sources of wild flower seeds don’t pay much attention to the native species, and they kind of clump cut flower mixes into “wildflower” mixes.

I have purchased a few seeds, but don’t want to introduce US wide “wildflowers” into an area where they are not native, so I am moving slowly. Part of that moving slowly is to see what is growing here naturally, and looking them up to ID them.

So far, not many are available on the commercial sites, although I have purchased showy evening primrose, red clover, orange butterfly weed and turks cap lily seeds. Those are growing on the sides of the roads along with queens anne lace and ORANGE milkweed. Haven’t found seeds for those yet.

My property is not inundated with masses of wildflowers like a lot of places in the state are, but they are kind of a steady stream of smaller groupings.

Four months ago it seemed like they were all pink flowering. Right now is the purple zone. Although I did find one yellow one today.

Here is what I have ID’d naturally on my property so far.



Right along the road in June, the mimosa were blooming. I was so excited about that!





There are masses of them on either side of the driveway. Not quite as thick, but blooming at the same time is Goat’s Rue.



The foliage of both are still going strong, although the blooms are done.

Most of the wildflowers I find are in the undisturbed portions of the woods, but one came up on the scrapped bare area of the soil. I found it two days ago and was happy to see it.

I had trouble IDing it. Most are really easy to figure out from and Arkansas wildflower ID site, but this one, I am not sure about. The flowers on the site look a lot bluer than this lavender on my teeny vine, and it really is a TEENY TINY vine, but I think it is something called wild blue vine, or coastal butterfly pea





The problem with that ID is that the flower doesn’t really look like the other butterfly peas that are on my property, which are much larger.

I absolutely adore the Maryland Butterfly Pea







And this last one that I have pictures of I could not… or WOULD not get close enough to because of the area it is in. IT is behind a pile of rotted wood, and deep leaf litter that looks snaky and scorpiony. But the ID was easy, it is a hairy petunia (the blue green foliage) growing in a patch of Maryland Butterfly Pea.


I hope to continue to discover more wildflowers growing in my little patch of earth.

Comments

[i-beckygardens.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! The purple fuzzy one is great.

[ravensgarden.livejournal.com]

Yeah, little truffula flowers!

[oakenking.livejournal.com]

Have you thought of harvesting seeds from the wild plants?

Many of the plants, like milkweeds and the peas, make such a multitude of seeds that you're not likely to be damaging their ecology at all... just take a nice long walk a few times a season with some zip-lok bags and a little note pad and a pen, and Bob's your uncle. I've done this to get our local passionflower vine, and there are a lot of things that grow easily from foraged seed.

[ravensgarden.livejournal.com]

This is a great idea. I want the wildflowers to eventually be massed along the road,with something blooming in all three seasons. I have massive patches of the Maryland butterfly pea on one side of the drive, and it looks like they may be coming up on the other, but there are so many little vines that look like them that I can't tell until they flower.

Up on top of the property are masses of cinnamon fern that I need to bring down here to the front too!

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I love fuzzy mimosas....we have those here, too.
And I've never seen anything like that teeny tiny vine.

Harvest the seeds yourself!

[ravensgarden.livejournal.com]

Will do. I have also ordered two of my favorite ARK wildflowers seeds from an internet company. I don't really like to do that because they may not be the same plant as what is native, but I feel fairly safe with the showy evening primrose and the orange butterfly weed.

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

If you REALLY want to keep only truly native wildflowers then don't plant seeds that were not sourced within a mile or two from your house. Many plants have variations that are extremely local. I'm running into this when thinking of plants to put along my streamsides. I'm doing my best to only plant things that come from the Ranch already.

I can't even begin to imagine living with snakes so close. Shrieks and runs away.

[ravensgarden.livejournal.com]

THat is my thought too. My sister and I used to dig up flowers from the sides of the roads, but that is now illegal state wide. My favorite section on the sides of the road are right up 65 from me, with showing evening primrose, oxeye daisy, red clover, and TEENY little native azaleas a little farther off the road in the rocks. That section is not on the state wildflower registry, but there are the DO NOT DISTURB FLOWERS signs all over.

I have been disappointed in the Arkansas Native Plant society for not responding to my email request for a seed source. They have plant sales several times a year, but otherwise they seem to focus on collecting membership fees.

Any response is better than NO response.