Nov. 22, 2020 - Wildflower Garden - 2

Here are some more flowers from our northern Minnesota wildflower garden.

When we started our wildflower garden in 2015, we planted a seed mixture that included 5 grasses and about 25 wildflowers. I’m not good at identifying grasses, but I do know we have Little Bluestem. So far, only about half of the wildflower species have bloomed and we assume that we just didn’t have the right conditions for the ones that didn’t appear. However, we have some species that we didn’t plant, and this attractive flower is one of them. We always try to identify the flowers that bloom using the books we have. Our best guess for this one was Wild Leek. I joined a Facebook group called Plant Identification and they called this Allium stellatum or Prairie Onion.

LeekWildAlliumtricoccumWildflowerGardenDunningLakeItascaCounty20200803

Canada Milk Vetch was included in our original seed assortment, but we didn’t notice it in the garden until the fifth year. It has a milky-white cone-shaped head of flowers.

MilkVetchCanadaAstragaluscanadensisWildflowerGardenDunningLakeItascaCounty20200803

White Prairie Clover displays a pattern seen in several of our other wildflower species. It has a tightly packed group of flowers that open over time, starting at the bottom of the flower head.

PrairieCloverWhiteWildflowerGardenDunningLakeItascaCounty2020724

Sheep Sorrel has such tiny flowers they can be easily overlooked. As I was looking up information about it, the description often included the word “weed.” It’s not a problem for us yet, but I guess we’ll keep an eye on it.

SorrelSheepRumexacetosellaWildflowerGardenDunningLakeItascaCounty20200627

This is one of the many members of the sunflower family.

SunflowerGiantWildflowerGardenDunningLakeItascaCounty20200731

Bird’s-foot Trefoil is not something we planted, but it does grow in our area. This plant is becoming a problem, so next year we will be trying to control it in our wildflower garden.

TrefoilBird'sfootDunningLakeItascaCounty20200705