Mullein: Yellow Lights
Cruising along Route 81 in Virginia, and I just had to pull over to take a look at these yellow stalks. I have never seen such gorgeous mullein plants. Common mullein is an odd wildflower, like a fencepost sticking straight up out of the ground. Little yellow flowers bloom up and down the stalk, each individual flower opening for only one day. At least at home in upstate New York the flowers are little, but here in the sunny south they’re the size of roses. They’re not a native plant, but not generally invasive. They love dry open ground where nothing else is growing, and can’t...
Read MoreDame’s Rocket: Wandering Lady
She’s all over the place right now. Gorgeously attired in shades of white, rose-pink, lavender and purple. She wanders into gardens, meadows, landfills. She hitchhikes along roadways. She lines the pond, and the forest, and the parking lot at the mall. Dame’s Rocket is the name of this ubiquitous June beauty. The explanation for this odd name is complex. First of all, “rocket” is a very old name for the spicy, peppery-tasting plants in the mustard family (nothing to do with rockets of the twentieth century). Dame’s Rocket is one of many species in the Mustard family. (The yellow stuff we put...
Read MoreBee Balm: A Good Bet
I admit it. It’s an addiction. The first step is admitting it, right? Much as I love nature and wild things, I just can’t pass up a greenhouse. There’s something about all those plants, spread out in a wild crazy quilt of color. The sheer gorgeousness of the exotic blooms. This is Gade Farm on Route 20 in Guilderland. I park the car and walk inside, vowing not to buy one more plant. Usually, in twenty minutes I’m staggering back to my car loaded down with petunias or what-have-you. But this year I drifted away from the magenta and purple and scarlet of the annuals, and checked out the...
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Garlic Mustard: The Time is Ripe
Time to get rid of it. Garlic mustard. Out it goes! The name sounds tasty, doesn’t it? It’s a pretty little wildflower with lovely white blossoms. The leaves have an attractively scalloped edge, and a savory garlic taste, a fantastic addition to salads, quiche, and stir-fry. A lovely and useful plant, you’d think. But I’ve spent all day killing it. Eradicating it. Ripping it out by the roots. Doing everything short of spraying a dose of Round-Up on it. Why? I have an enormous tolerance for non-native “weeds,” as my undying love for dandelions shows. Why enjoy the dandelions, the...
Read MoreAll Roads Lead to Dandelions
No matter where you go, it seems there’s a dandelion at your feet–or under your feet. This is a cobbled pathway in Central Park, New York City. The dandelions don’t content themselves with growing on the lawn, they invade the sidewalk, too. The flower and leaves manage to survive in the spaces between the stones. Just a few small crumpled leaves. Getting walked on all the time. How on earth can they do it? The secret of their success is in the root. Dandelions are perennials, coming up year after year, for five years or even more. So the root has time to get big. Even if...
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