This is truly my favourite time of year in the meadows at our cottage on Lake Muskoka. Why? Because the flower variety is at peak and the bees are at their most plentiful and buzzy. So my 17th fairy crown for August 5th celebrates the pollinator favourites here, including the champion, pink-flowered wild beebalm or bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), as well as yellow false oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides), biennial blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta), grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) with its dark cones, mauve hoary vervain (Verbena stricta), oregano (Origanum vulgare) and a few of my weedy Queen Anne’s lace flowers (Dauca carota).
I call my wild places on either side of the cottage ‘Monarda Meadows’ because wild beebalm (M. fistulosa) is the principal perennial there and in all the beds and wild places around our house, where it grows as a companion to Heliopsis helianthoides, below.
There’s a reason wild beebalm is called that; it’s a literal balm for the bees, specifically bumble bees whose tongues can easily probe the florets!
Another frequent visitor to wild beebalm flowers is the clearwing hummingbird moth (Hemaris thysbe).
False oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides) is one of the most aggressive natives I grow. I’m happy to leave it where it lands, but it often sulks in very sandy, sunny spots when summers are hot and dry. It’s much better in the rich soil at the bottom of my west meadow, and I try to ignore all the red aphids that line the stems in certain summers.
But heliopsis also attracts its share of native bees, including tiny Augochlora pura, below.
Unlike the blackeyed susan I wrote about in my last blog, R. fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’, the ones I have at the lake are all the drought-tolerant native Rudbeckia hirta, below, with a long-horned Melissodes bee. Biennials, they have seeded themselves around generously since 2003, when I first sowed masses of seed (along with red fescue grass) on the bare soil of the meadows surrounding our new house.
Sometimes they manage to arrange themselves very fetchingly, as with the perfumed Orienpet lily ‘Conca d’Or’, below.
Other times, they hang with the other tough native in my crown, hoary vervain (Verbena stricta). Both are happy in the driest places on our property where they flower for an exceedingly long time….
…… as you can see from this impromptu bouquet handful featuring the vervain with earlier bloomers, coreopsis, butterfly milkweed and oxeye daisy.
Bumble bees love Verbena stricta.
The other yellow daisy in flower now — hiding at the top of my fairy crown — is grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), also a favourite of bumble bees and small native bees in the meadows. A vigorous self-seeder, it nevertheless does not always land in soil that is moisture-retentive enough for its needs; in that case, like heliopsis above, it wilts badly. But I love its tall stems bending like willows in the breeze.
Also in my fairy crown is a familiar hardy herb that fell from a pot on my deck long ago and found a happy spot in the garden bed below: Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare var. hirtum).
Its tiny flowers are also favoured by small pollinators.
The last component of my midsummer fairy crown is the common umbellifer Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota). As much as we think of this as an unwanted invasive weed in North America, it was reassuring to see a native potter wasp, Ancistrocerus, making use of its small flowers.
As always, my fairy crown has a lovely second act as a bouquet.
Finally, I made a 2-minute musical video that celebrates these plants that form such an important ecological chapter in my summer on Lake Muskoka.
Last week, I performed what has become for me a ‘rite of November’: cutting down the meadows at our cottage on Lake Muskoka, a few hours north of Toronto. I have to admit, it isn’t my favourite chore of the year, though I acknowledge I don’t actually have a lot of “chores” up there, given the naturalistic way I garden. But it’s definitely the most labour-intensive – amidst the least pleasant weather conditions of autumn, as it usually turns out. This year it was blowing a gale as I assembled my wardrobe and tools: hedge shears, rake, cart, bundling cloth and ropes, rubber boots, extra layers under my waterproof jacket and fleece band to keep my ears warm. I started out with the big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), the tallest of my prairie grasses, at 7 feet with its turkey-foot flowers. Considering it’s growing in shallow soil atop the ancient rock of the Canadian Precambrian shield, rather than the deep loam of the tallgrass prairie where its roots can extend far down, I think it’s rather happy at the cottage, and I took a selfie of us together before I chopped off its head!
Since my meadows and beds likely measure only about 1600 square feet or so, it’s not a lot to hand-cut with the hedge shears. People wonder why I don’t use a string trimmer, but I find that holding the weight of a trimmer just above ground is harder on my back than bending over and chopping the stems manually. I understand you can buy a harness for the trimmer, so that might be an improvement – but there’s something hypnotically satisfying about working with the shears.
As I work, I rake and pile the stems into windrows near the cart where I’ll eventually pack them up into bundles to carry by hand up the hill behind the cottage to a place out of sight where they can break down. It’s important to leave some strong stems standing up to 12-18 inches (30-45 cm) so native ‘pith-nesting’ bees find them in order to lay their eggs.
If I don’t cut the meadows, the heavy snows of winter will soon bend down the grasses and forb stems, but the thatch that accumulates makes it less attractive for self-seeding wildflowers and daffodils emerging in spring. So if I want the scene below in mid-summer, it pays to prepare for it by cutting old growth.
And if I leave the switch grass (Panicum virgatum) standing after it turns colour in fall….
…. it will look like this in May.
So I remove all the above ground growth in November.
And if I’m travelling during this late autumn window (as we have on a few occasions), the daffodils will still come up in the meadow the following spring, but it’s a bit of a struggle.
In short, if I want this…..
…I have to do this.
And if I want this…..
….I have to do this.
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I could hold off on the cutting until late winter or very early spring, when the ground is still frozen (as I do in my city meadow), but timing doesn’t always work that well up here and a fast thaw means I’m cutting on mucky soil. And since most of the seed-eating birds have flown south and those that remain seem adept at picking up seed from the ground, I’m happy to clear out this…..
…. in order to enjoy this next summer.
Beyond the chores of this month, I love the varied browns of November. I’ve even blogged about Beguiling Brown in the Garden. And I enjoy inspecting all the seedheads as the plants complete their life cycles. Plants like showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa), its white panicled seedheads shown below alongside the charcoal autumn foliage of false indigo (Baptisia australis). (Incidentally, though these plants flower at the opposite ends of summer, they’re among the best for bumble bee foraging.)
Here is the candelabra-like seedhead of culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) with the ubiquitous button-like seedheads of wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa).
Those seedheads above, of course, are proof that the attractive summer flowers, shown below, attracted the pollination services of the appropriate wild bees.
And the late summer-autumn season has also allowed the various grasses to shine, below, including – apart from the big bluestem – Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) and switch grass (Panicum virgatum).
November is the perfect time for dormant seeding native wildflowers, so as I’m chopping the stems, I also do some fast sowing into the meadows, using my boot toe to kick little bare spots into the soil, then grinding some of the seeds just below the surface, while leaving others exposed. I do this with New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis), below.
Chopping, raking, piling, carrying. Chopping, raking, piling, carrying. After a good day-and-a-half in blustery wind and intermittent cold rain, I manage to take 8 tied bundles of stems up the back hill to a spot on top of the pile of blast rock that was cleared when we built our home here on this waterbound peninsula 16 years ago. In time, the vegetation will decompose amidst the staghorn sumac pioneers and create a more complex meadow planting here.
Finally, as I finish washing out the cart, coiling the garden hoses, cleaning my tools, bringing everything indoors and preparing to drive back to the city in the waning light of the third day, I gather up a handful of the stems I’ve put aside in my cutting. Because apart from enjoying vases filled with summer flowers in July…..
….. it feels virtuous, somehow, to accord these plants the same respect in November.
To capture a little of the atmosphere of what it’s like to perform this task in November, I’ve made a short video to enjoy here. (Please excuse the wind – it was impossible to find quiet moments.) The good news? My back and I are still on speaking terms!
Gardening in cottage country. Ah, the whispering white pines, the towering red oaks and sugar maples, the lacy hemlocks, the shimmering trilliums… and the pee-gee hydrangeas?
It is a strange paradox that when people head to their summer retreats in Muskoka, Georgian Bay or the Kawartha Lakes (or any other wilderness area), they often feel the need to recreate the type of manicured city landscape they left behind – one that fails to capture the unique sense of place inherent in the spectacular, rugged terrain of cottage country. After all, don’t we seek escape to a granite island or forested shoreline in order to appreciate nature in the wild, not to subdue it with our own sense of urban decorum?
But when that decorum includes a Kentucky bluegrass lawn sweeping down to the lake’s edge, one that needs fertilizing to stay green and mowing and edging to stay neat, it seems to me that we have not only turned our backs on the notion of wildness, but threatened it as well. We should all be aware by now that fertilizer runoff has a harmful effect on water quality, increasing the phosphorus levels, encouraging the growth of algae and adversely affecting the shoreline habitat for fish. But apart from the environmental effect of a lakeside lawn, the idea of having to replicate the humdrum chores of an urban back yard at a place where you should be snoozing in a hammock, reading the latest bestseller, and kicking off your summer sandals just seems wrong.
Of course, the ideal cottage landscape is the one that’s been altered the least, the one that retains the native low-bush blueberries, blackberry, black chokeberry, wild raspberry, bearberry, myrtleberry and sand cherry, below.
It’s the landscape that respects the bush honeysuckle, the creeping dogbane, white meadowsweet and common juniper, while rejoicing in the mayflower, wild strawberry, violet, Solomon’s seal, trout lily, trilliums and red columbine.
It appreciates the bracken and marginal shield ferns in the dry places, the cinnamon and royal ferns in the damp spots and the sensitive fern and lady fern in the shady forest. It’s the one where children and grandchildren run down paths carpeted with pine needles; where the shore is edged with white turtlehead, blue flag iris and swamp milkweed, below.
The place where wild goldenrod and an assortment of asters offer up an easy bouquet for the Thanksgiving table. And it does all this under trees that grow in familiar communities – red maple, white pine, beech, red oak, paper birch, hemlock, moose maple, staghorn sumac and trembling aspen – while giving shelter to songbirds, chattering jays, chickadees, barred owls and woodpeckers.
Gardening Between a Rock and a Hard Place
But what if leaving the cottage landscape au naturel is not an option? Construction doesn’t always leave the land in pristine condition, and sometimes a cottage property has been “tamed” by the people who owned it before you came on the scene. What then? For me, it was necessary to come up with a fast landscape plan after we built our Lake Muskoka home in 2001-02, a construction project that left the sloping bedrock exposed and barren of vegetation. But perhaps I should back up a little here.
Our south-facing property was the driest, hottest patch of land on a little peninsula jutting out into a small bay on the southeast part of Lake Muskoka. Except for a row of towering, white pines at the shore – survivors of a fire that razed parts of the peninsula ridge decades earlier – and some red oaks here and there, the vegetation was scrubby, its growth constrained by shallow, acidic, sandy soil formed from the granite and grey gneiss rock underlying much of the region. Sloping on a moderate angle to the lake, it was a challenging site for construction of a four-season house big enough to accommodate children, friends and far-flung relatives for family reunions. With no road access, all supplies arrived by barge, including the concrete truck that poured the foundation, massive steel beams, roof trusses, lumber, appliances and furniture.
When all was finished, we were delighted with the cottage (that’s the rustic euphemism we assign to homes of any size on Lake Muskoka); the views were spectacular from all sides and a screened porch extended the hours we could be outdoors dining and reading. But our ecological footprint had not been light. Much of the bedrock on either side of the site had been scraped bare of vegetation by tractors and line-trenchers. Worse, the front of the cottage dropped away sharply onto sloping granite, making exiting the doors on the lower level to reach the lake a treacherous exercise.
My objective in landscaping was not simply to re-green the site, but to re-shape the contour of the land, adding a front plateau to let us safely access the hillside. It would feature a new woodchip path to replace the path that meandered across the property long before we built there. We would also need stairs leading to the lake and dock, and I played with various concepts, below, as we worked on the house.
But beyond the structural changes, I wanted to return our land to a richer, more complex diversity than it possessed before we began to build. I knew that the pines and oaks would eventually re-colonize the property, along with blueberries, junipers and sumacs. In the meantime, there would be years of vibrant sunshine to nourish whatever I chose for my palette. And even as I transplanted tiny pine saplings, I began to dream about those wild, flower-spangled meadows I had grown up with as a child in Victoria,
It wasn’t just a desire to naturalize an already natural site that appealed to me. I was also pushing back against the way I’d been gardening in the city, rebelling against the need for constraint and order that comes with beds and borders and neatly-mown lawns. It made no sense to think that way about a cottage landscape; not only would it be out-of-step with the natural environment, it would be out-of-synch with how I had changed, physically and philosophically, as a gardener. More and more, I wanted a landscape that was not just for me and my kind, but one that would appeal to other species: the bees, katydids, butterflies, birds and chipmunks that would soon call the meadows home. I also wanted that sense of aesthetic pleasure that comes from observing a truly changing canvas with a roster of plants to provide a shifting tapestry from April to October. Most of all, I wanted my meadows to be low-maintenance.
After the last of the construction equipment was removed from the site, a barge arrived loaded with a tractor and different kinds of soil. For the most conventional garden beds – the spaces between the four doors on the lower level – rich triple-mix consisting of equal parts of loam, peat and manure was chosen. For the open meadows on either side of the cottage and the sunny hillsides in front of them, we settled for a local, low-grade, sandy soil, emulating the environment found in natural sand prairies. On the steep bank dropping from the newly-shaped path under the old white pines in front of the cottage, we elected to spread a locally-sourced forest soil called “trimmings” that contained the roots and seeds of whatever might be found naturally growing in similar conditions nearby.
My objective that first summer was to prevent the new soil from washing down the slope in rainstorms. As a fast-germinating cover crop, I seeded the meadows and hillsides with a combination of creeping red fescue grass (Festuca rubra) and black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta), mixing about 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of the wildflowers into 4.5 kilos (10 pounds) of grass seed. A few weeks and many hours of hand-watering later…..
….the first blades of grass emerged, followed closely by the first tiny leaves of countless blackeyed susans.
A biennial, it makes a rosette of foliage in its first season and sends up flower stems the following summer, before setting seed and dying. I still laugh at the photos taken of me in year two standing amidst thousands of cheerful black-eyed susans.
Into the rich soil of the doorway garden beds went big golden yarrow (Achillea filipendulina ‘Gold Plate’), Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) and switch grass (Panicum virgatum). This is how the path and a doorway bed looked a few years later.
At the base of the richest meadow, I planted an assortment of prairie grasses, including big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium),Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) and switch grass (Panicum virgatum), below. And over the next few years, I did an autumn sowing of seeds of a roster of tallgrass prairie perennials that would become the flowery backbone of the meadows: foxglove penstemon, heliopsis, monarda, gaillardia, sweet blackeyed susan, gray-headed coneflower, asters and showy goldenrod to add to goldenrods already on the property. That plants were native was not as important to me as their drought-tolerance, a vital attribute for a landscape that would rely on rainwater — while acknowledging that dry summers would take their toll on plants growing in shallow soil.
The Meadows Mature
Now, fifteen years later, my meadows and garden beds provide a bounty of flowers (and beautiful bouquets). There is something in bloom from the first daffodils of April…..
…. to the last goldenrod and asters of autumn. This is showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa), down by the lake in late September.
Monarch butterflies lay eggs on the butterfly milkweed….
….producing beautiful caterpillars and a new generation of the iconic butterfly…..
….which, when it prepares to fly south to Mexico in early September, sometimes stops on our dock to soak up a little salt from the feet of sunbathers.
Myriad pollinating insects and hummingbirds visit the flowers, like this ruby-throated female on my crocosmia flowers (which, amazingly, have overwintered for years)….
…while goldfinches enjoy the monarda seeds….
…..and ruffed grouse are regularly spotted in late summer wandering through my meadows.
Though there are a few deer on our peninsula, they seem to prefer the young sumac shoots to my perennials….
….. but groundhogs enjoy purple coneflower and coreopsis from time to time.
In truth, the meadows are so profuse that I am happy to share a few plants. Yes, there are exotics some might call “weeds”, e.g. oxeye daisies, buttercups. birdsfoot trefoil, musk mallow, cow vetch, hawkweed and quackgrass, but they are kept in check by the vigorous prairie plants.
The only work required is to use a trimmer twice each season to keep the path across the property clear.
In November, I need to cut down the meadow grasses to reduce the thatch that builds up and to keep things neat for the daffodils that emerge each April. And, of course, to prevent the meadow from transitioning naturally to bush, it’s necessary to keep out any blackberries and sumacs that might want to jump the path from the steep slope to the lake.
My cottage neighbours know where to find a bouquet of fragrant daffodils in springtime.
The bumble bees know where to find beebalm with sweet nectar.
And I know where to find photographic inspiration and beauty all season long, like this single day, July 7, 2013, when I collected all these flowers at the cottage.
Let’s take a little tour of the property.
A Tour of My Muskoka Garden Today
Coming down the stairs from the cottage, we see the little patch of wildness I call the “east meadow”. The soil here is shallow and the plants — tall cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) at the bottom of the stairs and beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) and false oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides) in the meadows — tend to suffer in a dry summer. On this side of the stairs is a large stand of Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ and other plants.
Here’s the view of the cottage through the beebalm and heliopsis in the east meadow.
Here’s the stairway to the lake, below, with a little viewing deck part-way down. The slope, composed of soil called ‘trimmings’, features plants native to Muskoka, including sumac (Rhus typhina), meadowsweet (Spiraea latifolia), common juniper (Juniperus communis) and wild blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis). Oaks and maples sprout on the slope as well; some are encouraged but it’s necessary to thin the forest a little here.
In early summer, that little section below the bench is a lovely confection of foxglove penstemon (P. digitalis) and lanceleaf coreopsis (C. lanceolata). Both of these native perennials share a love of dry, gravelly soil.
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Here’s a short video of foxglove penstemon at the lake shore.
On a grassy part of the slope to the lake, I combine butterfly milkweed with blackeyed susans.
Looking west down the path past the scented ‘Conca d’Or’ lily (one of the strongest Orienpet or Oriental x Trumpet hybrids), it’s amazing to me that this flat terrace was created from a once steep and treacherous slope.
Moving along the path, the bed (using the word ‘bed’ very loosely) at the eastern end of the cottage is filled with more fragrant Orienpet lilies. Over the years, I’ve discovered that certain perennials exhibit good drought-tolerance, like Veronica spicata ‘Darwin’s Blue’, just finishing below. This bed also contains English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), ‘Walker’s Low’ catmint (Nepeta racemosa) and ‘May Night’ meadow sage (Salvia nemorosa).
The most satisfying garden section at the cottage has been the small, sloping west meadow, aka the ‘monarda meadow’ for its predominant wild beebalm, Monarda fistulosa. This is how it looks today,as the large prairie grasses at right are just beginning to fountain.
In early August the west meadow features some good perennial partners with the monarda, including ‘Gold Plate’ yarrow (Achillea filipendulina)….
…. gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata)….
…. and false oxyeye (Heliopsis helianthoides)…..
In June, the monarda meadow features the odd wild lupine (Lupinus perennis), now less populous than they were a few years ago, when their blue candles glowed in the grasses.
I made a little time capsule video to remember my meadows this week, in a summer when rain was plentiful (to say the least) and the flowers all reached for the sky.
Bouquets from the Meadows
The cottage beds and meadows have yielded lovely bouquets for the table, whether in June with the lupines, false indigo (Baptisia australis), oxyeye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) and large-flowered penstemon (P. grandiflorus)…
….or later in summer, with cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum), gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), blue Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), purple blazing star (Liatris spicata) and the many goldenrods (Solidago sp.) that flower at the cottage.
Sometimes I add stems of Allegheny blackberry (Rubus allegeniensis) and nannyberry (Viburnum lentago) to the summer wildflowers, like the little nosegays below.
20 Great Cottage Perennials for Bees & Butterflies
Except for the fragrant lilies, which are just for me, my criterion for including plants to the cottage beds and meadows is that they must be useful to foraging insects and birds. Here are twenty of the best:
1. Blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) – Ironclad, low-maintenance native perennial attracts bumble bees at a critical time in late spring when bumble bees are provisioning their nests.
2, Wild lupine (Lupinus perennis) – Bumble bees are the pollinators for this native perennial, which flowers in June.
3. Blackeyed susan – Rudbeckia hirta – Lots of small native bees and butterflies enjoy foraging on biennial blackeyed susans.
4. Blanket flower – Gaillardia x grandiflora – Provided it’s regularly deadheaded, blanket flower will bloom until autumn, attracting myriad bees.
5. Catmint – Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ – Long-flowering and a bee magnet, catmint has aromatic foliage that discourages deer.
6. Lanceleaf coreopsis (C. lanceolata) – One of the easiest, most drought-tolerant perennials for early summer, this coreopsis attracts lots of bees and its seeds attract hungry goldfinches.
7. Foxglove penstemon (P. digitalis) – Another easy, adaptable native perennial, this penstemon flowers at the same time as coreopsis, above, and enjoys the same rugged conditions – dry, gravelly soil. Bumble bees forage on it extensively.
8. Hoary vervain (Verbena stricta) – This vervain epitomizes “hardy and drought-tolerant” and is the most foolproof perennial in my dry meadows. Guaranteed to bloom and attract bumble bees.
9. False oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides) – In the ‘be careful what you wish for’ category, this one is easy from seed and likes to take over the meadow. A negative is its attraction to rosy-apple (red) aphids, but lots of native pollinators enjoy the flowers, including the wasp below.
10. Wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) – Easily the most valuable perennial in my meadows, attracting bumble bees, hummingbirds and the lovely clearwing hummingbird moth, below.
Bumble bees are plentiful in my meadows during the blooming period of the wild beebalm. This is my west meadow today, August 7, 2017.
11. Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) – I have blogged at length about this plant, named the Perennial Plant Association’s 2017 Plant of the Year. It attracts many types of pollinators, including the monarch butterfly, which lays its eggs on the plant to be foraged by the developing caterpillar.
Butterfly milkweed is also very popular with bumble bees of all kinds. Here’s a video I made of a bumble bee nectaring while a red squirrel scolds and a Swainson’s thrush sings in the background.
12. Gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) – With its willowy stems, this perennial is the most graceful in my meadows, and attracts small native bees.
13. Cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) – The tallest of my meadow perennials, this one is a colonizer, but so popular with bumble bees that it can be forgiven for laying claim to as much territory as it can.
I was surprised one year to see which animal was snacking on the 8-foot tall seedheads of my cup plant. Not a deer, but a…….
14. Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) – Hardy with aromatic leaves that repel deer, this sub-shrub is an excellent companion for big golden yarrow. Bumble bees and honey bees adore the tiny, lavender-purple flowers.
15. Blazing Star or Gayfeather (Liatris – many species, esp. L. ligulistylis, below, and L. spicata) – I adore all the blazing stars, and so do the butterflies. Rocky Mountain blazing star, below, is particularly popular with monarch butterflies and with the great spangled fritillary shown.
16. Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) – Preferring more moisture than many of the prairie natives, this tall perennial (the one below is the cultivar ‘Fascination’) is a magnet for bees and butterflies.
17. New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) – Wherever there’s an extra bit of moisture, this tall ironweed thrives in late summer. It attracts bees and many types of butterfly, including the painted lady, below.
18. Sweet blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa) – A tall, easy-going perennial – and my favourite of the rudbeckia clan, this late-summer beauty attracts its share of native bees and wasps.
19. Goldenrod (Solidago sp.) – There are at least a half-dozen species of goldenrod that thrive on our property. Some are invasive enough to be nuisances, like Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis). Others are rare enough to be prized, like Solidago nemoralis. But my favourite is one I seeded myself, showy goldenrod, Solidago speciosa, below. One of the latest-blooming perennials, it is often in flower well into October, nourishing the last of the bumble bees before our long Muskoka winter.
20. New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) – At the very end of the season, around Thanksgiving time in Canada, the various asters provide a late, vital source of nectar for all the bees.
***********************************
Adapted from a story that appeared originally in Trellis, the magazine of the Toronto Botanical Garden.
I spent an hour on Thanksgiving weekend planting a dozen Orienpet lily bulbs in my meadow gardens at the cottage on Lake Muskoka. A deservedly popular group resulting from complex hybridizing of Oriental and Trumpet lilies, they came from the Lily Nook in Neepawa, Manitoba, which has been in the lily-breeding business for more than 30 years. The Lily Nook also sells popular lilies outside their own registry, offering 150 varieties through their catalogue. I’ve always been impressed with their service and the quality of their bulbs.
When I say I planted the bulbs in “meadow gardens”, I mean either one of two small fields on either side of the cottage, below, but also in….
..garden beds that I originally intended to keep somewhat tame, which have now been invaded by their wild meadow brethren. This is ‘Conca d’Or’ – my favourite Orienpet, with blue Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) and ‘Gold Plate’ yarrow (Achillea filipenulina)….
Planting lilies is easy, and much like planting spring bulbs such as tulips or daffodils. The difference is that lilies can be planted in either fall or spring, unlike spring-flowering bulbs which must be planted in autumn. Fall planting works well when autumns are long and relatively mild, allowing the bulbs to root nicely before freeze-up. In my case, there is no beautiful, rich soil to work; it is truly a mess of wild grass and wildflower or perennial roots and granite bed rock. I shifted my spade around to find 10-12 inches of clear soil, then dug out any roots I could and sifted the soil a little with my hands. I had a very small amount of seed-starting mix that I added to the hole (I would recommend a better soil, if you have it, to give a good start), then plunked the fat, scaled lily bulb on top. Lilies prefer rich, free-draining but reasonably moist soil.
I gathered a pail of pine needles, and after backfilling the hole with the bulb, I mulched the soil with the needles and watered everything well. Experts recommend mulching Orienpets in cold regions, but apart from the pine needles, I’ve relied on our generally guaranteed deep snow cover to get them through winter. The pine needle mulch at least guarantees a short time for the bulb to emerge in spring without encroachment by other plants.
And when I say encroachment, in meadow gardening it’s a given that life is cheek-to-jowl and plants must be able to survive in those conditions. Here’s the Asiatic lily ‘Pearl Justien’ with wild sweet pea (Lathyrus latifolius).
This year, I bought 3 bulbs each of pink ‘Tabledance’ (who makes these names up?) and ‘Esta Bonita’, three of ‘Northern Delight’ (soft melon orange) and three more of my fave: pale-yellow ‘Conca d’Or’. The Lily Nook always adds a free bonus bulb, usually an Asiatic. While they are lovely in my city garden, they don’t seem to take as well to the meadows at the lake. The one below faded away after a few years of rough living.
Orienpets have inherited the spicy fragrance of their pink and white Oriental parents and the swoony scent of the orange and yellow Trumpets. So I’m careful to site my lilies where their exquisite perfume can be enjoyed up close. That means near a sitting area, as with ‘Conca d’Or’, below…
…. or along a grassy path where walkers can enjoy inhaling. That’s peachy ‘Visa-Versa’ at the front, and the orange Asiatic ‘Pearl Justien’ in the rear.
…. or beside the stairs to the dock….
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They are not immune to disease (especially after a rainy spring, when the stems and leaves can develop a blight) and certain little critters love them, especially red lily beetle (I don’t have many of these) and grasshoppers, like the ones below noshing on ‘Robina’ (I have thousands of these!)
This one reminded me of Dr. Strangelove riding the bomb.
Deer will take the odd chomp off the top – and that, of course means the end of the flower. But when they are happy(ish), they are my guilty pleasure – since everything else in my meadows is grown for wildlife and pollinator attraction. The liies are just for me, a little hit of luscious intermingled with the do-gooders. Let them keep company with the red ‘Lucifer’ crocosmia as it brings in the hummingbirds to sup….
…. and with the orange butterfly milkweed, as it attracts bumble bees and monarch butterflies.
Let them hang out with the bee-friendly veronica (V. spicata ‘Darwin’s Blue’)….
…. and the pink wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) with its hordes of bumble bees.
Here’s a tiny video of ‘Conca d’Or’, (above) playing partner to beebalm.
Yes, my meadows are big enough for a few pinup gals, like ‘Visa-Versa’, below.
And the garden beds look all the lovelier for a ravishing beauty among the humble blackeyed susans.
You know that feeling of pride you get when a friend receives a well-deserved award? I feel exactly that way about an outstanding prairie wildflower that I’ve been growing here in my meadows on Lake Muskoka for many years. So, when I heard that The Perennial Plant Association chose my very favourite perennial – butterfly milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa — to be their 2017 Plant of the Year, I decided to honour it with my own blog.
The PPA award is not the first laurel to be bestowed on this lovely wildling. In 2014, it was awarded the Freeman Medal by the Garden Clubs of America, as a native deserving of wider garden planting. And the GCA president asked me if I would donate my photo of a monarch butterfly on the flowers, below, which I was happy to do (see down this page).
Despite the plaudits, butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) is not the easiest perennial to grow, unless you happen to garden on a sand prairie. It has a deep tap root that makes it rather difficult to transplant. And seeds are often notoriously slow to germinate and grow, sometimes taking 5 years to grow enough to set flower buds. But give it a little rich, free-draining, gravelly soil and lots of sunshine, and watch the pollinating insects pile on. Foremost, of course, is the beautiful monarch butterfly, which uses it – as it does all milkweed species – as food for its caterpillars. If you’re lucky, you might see the female monarch ovipositing on its leaves or flowers.
Come back and you’ll see the little egg on a leaf….
… or perhaps right in the flowers.
Follow along over the next few weeks and you’ll see the various instars of the developing caterpillar munching away on the leaves….
…. and the flower buds.
But monarchs aren’t the only butterflies fond of butterfly milkweed. Many others love the nectar-rich flowers, including the great spangled fritillary…
…. hairstreaks, below, and many others.
Bees love it too. On my property, I often see the orange-belted bumble bee (Bombus ternarius) nectaring….
….and the brown-belted bumble bee (Bombus griseocollis), too.
Here’s a little video I made of the brown-belted bumble bee foraging on my butterfly milkweed. In the background, you can hear a red squirrel scolding and a lovely Swainson’s thrush singing its flute-like song.
Naturally, many native bees seek nectar from butterfly milkweed. I’ve seen long-horned (Melissodes) bees….
…. and tiny, green sweat bees (Auguchlora pura), all enjoying the flowers.
Honey bees are avid foragers, too.
Seek doctor’s advice before thinking to act.* If you want to get treated for alcohol addiction or drug abuse, you can get effective treatment in these rehab cheap cialis 5mg centers. Precautions This drug ought to be generic cialis in canada used by an impotence victim not by anyone else, not even a disorder. This process accentuates the production of contractile proteins which are used to make your muscle contract more forcefully, as well as structural proteins that are present sildenafil generico online naturally in the body. Human growth hormone or HGH is a hormone controlled canada tadalafil djpaulkom.tv by your pituitary gland. Okay, you get the picture. This is one superb pollinator plant! But how should one grow it, and with what companions? I have grown it in both reasonably rich, sandy soil, and very dry, lean, sandy soil, and I can attest that it prefers more moisture than other prairie plants, such as gaillardia and coreopsis. This is what it looked like near my septic system this July. I managed to keep it watered by running two hoses up the hill behind my cottage, but it was a struggle until a few rains came.
However, if summer rains are abundant, it’s happy with those more drought-tolerant natives. Here it is growing very wild in dry soil with Coreopsis lanceolata.
And it does well in fairly dry conditions with Anthemis tinctoria.
On the other hand, it does well in reasonably rich soil with my Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, where I can run the hose if rains don’t come (like this summer)…..
…. and peeking up through my grassy monarda meadow, near a lush pink lily.
I’ve grown it with Penstemon barbatus ‘Coccineus’….
…and with blackeyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta).
And I’ve seen it looking pretty with daylilies and catmint in a friend’s garden, too.
Butterfly milkweed’s blooming season is so long, it counts numerous July and August plants as companions. Here is a bouquet I photographed on July 17th, 2010 with blackeyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta), false oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides), veronica (Veronica spicata ‘Darwin’s Blue’) and blue vervain (Verbena hastata).
… and a collection of little bouquets I made on August 16th, 2013.
If you want to know absolutely everything that might flower at the same time, here’s a montage I made one year on July 7th, 2014. Yes, that’s butterfly milkweed near the lower right corner. See if you can guess the rest!
I have planted dozens of young butterfly milkweed plants here at Lake Muskoka over the years, like these ones offered by the Canadian Wildlife Federation (along with suitable nectar plants), as an encouragement to ‘bring back the monarch butterfly’. Most took, provided I irrigated them for the first summer; a few didn’t.
But I have also managed to grow many from seed, which is harvested from the typical milkweed fruit capsule. The ones that were most successful were those I guerilla-sowed, using the toe of my boot to kick them in along the edge of a gritty, community pathway midway down the hillside on a neighbour’s property. Under that granitic gravel, below, there was actually rich sandy soil and adequate moisture, given that the path sits mid-slope on the hill. But this tough environment best replicates the natural ‘sand prairie’ that butterfly milkweed likes.
You can also buy a seed mix in multiple colours: ‘Gay Butterflies Mix’, below.
Want to try your hand sowing butterfly milkweed? Follow these seeding instructions in a propagation guide in the Minnesota newsletter of Wild Ones: “Collect when pods are cracked open. Remove down; cold stratify in fridge in damp sand for 90 days. Broadcast on soil surface in spring when soil is warm.”
Best of luck growing this worthy award winner! You and the pollinators – including the lovely monarch butterfly – are worth the effort.
