Each year summer goes out with a bang here in this corner of New Hampshire, and this is how some of our roadsides look now; full of several kinds of asters and goldenrods. Welcome to fall.
There were lots of what I believe were purple-stemmed asters (Symphyotrichum puniceum) along that road. They like damp places and branch at the tops of their stems. The stems are often very dark purple as can be seen in this photo, and that’s where the common name comes from.
This is also one of the best places I know of to find my favorite aster, the deep purple New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae.) It’s a hard one to find in this region for some reason, but it loves this small hillside.
I went from the roadside to brookside at Beaver Brook. There is a flower growing here that doesn’t grow anywhere else that I’ve been.
Blue stemmed goldenrod (Solidago caesia) appears early in summer but waits until September to bloom. Its stems grow vertically until the flowers begin to open and then fall over into a more horizontal position, as if to show off the yellow blooms that grow in tufts all along the stem.
The stems of blue stemmed goldenrod get their blue color from the same natural wax coating that is found on grapes, plums, blueberries and other plants. The coating is called a “bloom” and plants use it as a form of protection against moisture loss. It’s made up of tiny powdery, whitish crystals which reflect and scatter light in ways that can make the surface that they cover appear very blue. The wax crystals can be washed off by rain or melted by the sun, so many stems will be green before the plant blooms. This plant tolerates shade and seems to prefer places where it will only get two or three hours of sunlight. It isn’t considered rare but I’ve only seen it here.
White rattlesnake root (Prenanthes alba) also blooms at Beaver Brook. This plant gets its common name from the Native American belief that it could cure rattlesnake bites. The small, drooping white, lily like blossoms bloom at the top of stems that might reach 5 feet. They move in the slightest breeze and are quite hard to get a good shot of. I like the forked stamens that are often as long as the flower petals.
Northern bugleweed (Lycopus uniflorus) has opposite leaves that turn 90 degrees to the previous pair as they make their way up the square stem. The leaves are sessile, meaning they sit directly on the stem with no leaf stem (petiole,) or they can occasionally have a short petiole as these did. Tufts of very small white flowers grow around the stem in the leaf axils. This plant likes wet places and, since there are many different species of Lycopus, it can be hard to identify.
The tiny flowers of northern bugleweed are about 1/8 inch long and tubular with 4 lobes, a light green calyx with 5 teeth, 2 purple tipped stamens, and a pistil. They are also very difficult to photograph because they’re so small. The plant is usually about knee high when I find it along the edges of ponds and streams. They often fall over and grow at an angle if there aren’t any other plants nearby to support them.
This is what bugle weed’s seed pods look like when they’re forming. When ripe they will be brown and have clusters of four nutlets formed the shape of a square. Each nutlet will hold a single seed.
I was surprised to find a violet blooming at the edge of the woods. This is a flower I’d expect to see blooming with tulips, not with asters.
This garden aster, which I once hoped was a fragrant aster, is very slow to come along this year…
…but the bees are getting what they can from it nonetheless.
It’s time to say goodbye to coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea,) from what I’ve seen. The petals that haven’t fallen taken on that papery, pastel look that means they’ll fall too, soon. You can also see how yellow their foliage is getting in this photo.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a sedum do what this one was doing. Usually the plants I see have much smaller flowers. I like its foamy, fuzzy look.
Red is a color that cameras don’t like but I was able to get a shot of this red phlox with my phone camera. Many cameras want to turn red into purple but that usually isn’t a problem unless you see a lot of red flowers. I haven’t seen a red phlox in many years. I wish I had sniffed to see if it had a fragrance.
I thought this was another willowleaf angelonia (Angelonia salicariifolia) growing in a local garden but it doesn’t have the right leaf shape, so now I’m not sure what it is. It grew in a pot and stood maybe a foot tall. The flowers were very pretty and looked just like those I saw recently on a willowleaf angelonia, I thought.
When I posted a shot of a rudbeckia that I found in a local garden a while ago a reader thought it might be a gallardia instead. In my reply I said that I had grown gallardia for a client probably forty years ago and had found them to be a disappointment, but then I got thinking that my opinion wasn’t a fair one and maybe I should see what galardia are like these days. Maybe, I thought, they have come a long way. Well, maybe not. I found these plants in another local garden and remembered why they had been so disappointing; they never seem to open. Every time I’ve seen them, they have looked like this, as if opening fully was just too much work. When I saw them, I remembered that being the chief complaint of the lady I was gardening for at the time. “Next time” she asked, “could we get flowers that open?” Before I wrote this, I looked online and saw beautiful flowers fully opened, so I wonder what am I missing?
NOTE: Helpful readers have told me that these plants are gazania rather than gaillardia. I believe that I tried both back in the day when I was a gardener and I don’t remember being too impressed by either one. But it could be that they’ve improved a lot in the past 30-40 years, so why not give them a try?
The yellow fall blooming azalea I find in a local public garden at about this time of year also blooms in spring, I discovered this past spring. I don’t know its name but it seems that an azalea that blooms in both spring and fall would be a valuable addition to any garden.
What Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) lacks in flower size it more than makess up for in root size. Its roots can spread 20 feet in a single season and pieces of broken root will produce new plants, and for that reason it is taken care of quickly by farmers. As thistles go its flowers are small; less than a half inch across, even though the plant itself can reach 5 feet tall. The leaves are very prickly. It is native to Europe and Asia and has nothing to do with Canada except as an invasive plant, so I’m not sure how it came by the name.
Years ago I bought a bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora,) which is a native shrub. It does well in the understory and prefers partial shade so I planted it between two trees to use as a screen to screen out the neighbor’s yard beyond. Ten yeas or so later that shrub probably hasn’t grown six inches taller than it was when I planted it. But it has gotten wider, and it does flower, as this photo shows. I suppose I should count my blessings, because there is one at the local college and it is huge. If mine got half that size, it would have to come out, so I should be happy. Its leaves turn a beautiful yellow in fall, so I’m looking forward to that.
Bottlebrush buckeyes produce nuts, I found recently when I visited the one at the local college. It blooms two months earlier than mine and it has these nuts all over it. The nuts are called buckeyes because they are said to resemble the eye of a male deer. I don’t see the resemblance but I did find out that the plant is related to the horse chestnut and its nuts are poisonous if eaten, as are the leaves and bark. The seeds inside the husks contain high quantities of saponins, I’ve read. Saponins make a good soap substitute, so if soap is the next thing I can’t find at the local market I’ll be all set.
Here are more of those roadside flowers, for your viewing pleasure. I hope you have scenes just like this where you are.
Silently a flower blooms,
In silence it falls away;
Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,
The world of the flower, the whole of the world is blooming.
This is the talk of the flower, the truth of the blossom:
The glory of eternal life is fully shining here.
~ Zenkei Shibayama
Thanks for coming by.
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 