Aug. 26, 2018 - Wildflower Garden

At our lake home in northern Minnesota, we’ve always had part of our yard that we didn’t mow. We enjoyed seeing wildflowers that grew there but most of the area was filled with grasses. In 2014 we hired Jeff Poenix to prepare the area and seed it with a mixture of wildflowers. It has been a source of great pleasure for us. This spring it was time to do a controlled burn to rejuvenate the garden. Jeff is an experienced firefighter, so he came and did it for us.

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It’s a small area so the burn took less than 15 minutes. Seeing it in this condition required a leap of faith to believe we would have our beautiful flower garden again this year.

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Before settlers came to the great plains, fire was a natural experience and it always revived the prairie. We shouldn’t have been worried because that’s exactly what the burning did for our wildflower area. It came back even stronger than before. This is how it looked in the middle of August.

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A closer photo reveals the usual abundance of flowers, including Wild Bergamot (the purple flowers in this photo), Black-eyed Susan, and Sunflower.

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Here are some of the other flowers that grew and the date we first saw them. This is Golden Alexander which first flowered on June 18. Some wildflower plants take a few years before they blossom. We didn’t start seeing this flower until last year.

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Western Spiderwort is a low growing plant and the first blossoms appeared on June 29.

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Downy Phlox showed up on July 13.

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Hoary Vervain also started flowering on July 13. The flower stalk is at the top of the plant and the tiny, individual flowers open first at the bottom and progressively open up to the top.

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We have one Tawny Day Lily that has been in this area for years. It must be tough because it has survived rototilling and keeps blooming year after year. This photo was taken on July 13. True to its name, each blossom lasts only one day. Note that there are several more buds that will open on successive days.

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White Prairie Clover started blooming on July 22.

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Purple Prairie Clover also appeared on July 22.

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We saw Long-headed Coneflowers starting on July 27.

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This is the first year we have seen Mountain Mint. It was in the original mixture of seeds, so we aren’t sure if it just takes this long to mature or if the fire actually stimulated it to grow and flower.

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