The Wildflower Meadow

 The Wildflower Meadow adjacent to our south field is full of wild flowers, both native and invasive, now mostly seeded out. Not many Himalaya Blackberries remain after my many days of grubbing them out and taking them to the goats, who devour the leaves. We then add the bare stalks to the burn pile which, someday, we will be able to burn. The summer has been very, very hot and dry.

I have neglected taking photos of the flowers as they bloom. Or, if I did, they are buried in the computer and not in a blog post. So I will start now, with the few flowers still in bloom in September. Mostly what can be seen are the seed heads of Queen Anne's Lace (a non-native). I will attempt to remember to add to this post as the flowers bloom in the spring (have I said this before?)

So, starting at the end of the season, here are Hall's Asters (white) and Douglas Asters (blue/purple)...

                                        

                                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also blooming now, true to their name, are Pearly Everlasting...

May Day 2021 in our woods

Well, the camas were in the arboretum meadow

 

Pacific Bleeding Hearts

Some of the below flowers need id...

Ranunculus, probably uncinatus, Small-Flowered Buttercup

Fairybells

Tiger Lily

Rattlesnake Plantain

 Friend Mary hiked with me today checking out wildflowers in the Qi Gong meadow. I'm trying to figure out what kind of goldenrod we have or if we have more than one kind. I'll add to this post if I ever figure it out.

But the exciting thing was when we went into the Qi gong grove of fir trees by Agency Creek. Mary spotted a little plant with white veined leaves that I had never seen before. She identified it as Rattlesnake Plantain, in the orchid family. It's not blooming this time of year, but maybe it will in the spring! Not very spectacular little flowers but unique leaves.

The Chocolate Lily

 On March 25, 2021, I took photos of the Chocolate Lily rising above the Valentine's weekend ice storm downfalls. It's amazing anything survived. 

Here is looking toward the smashed cage over the chocolate lily site...

 

 

 

Here it is closer. The smashed wire cage is bottom center.

 

 

 

 And here is the cage with the lily in the middle...

 

A bigger lily is outside the cage growing out from under a fallen log.

Now look again at the first photo on top. There is a broken slab sticking out to the left in the center of the photo. In the second, closer photo, that broken slab is at the very top of the photo. Below and just a bit to the left is that bigger lily.

I will continue to take photos as the lilies, hopefully, grow and bloom. At least this year they shouldn't have so much trouble with deer eating them as they are no longer on a usable deer trail!

On Easter Sunday, April 4, the lily has grown and is in bud! Several buds, in fact. It seems to like its protected location. The one inside the cage is quite small yet but trying to bud. The photo I tried to take of it did not come out.

April 11, the Chocolate Lily is almost all the way open.

The much smaller caged lily is also opening but my photo is blurry...

April 14, both lilies blooming!

 

 

 

 

April/May 2020

I did not realize how long it has been since I posted wildflower photos on this blog. The Chocolate Lily, Fritillaria lanceolata, has bloomed and faded. First time it has ever bloomed, thanks to dog hair.

Western Trillium            Trillium ovatum

 I should have dog-haired the Sessile Trillium as they almost all were eaten by something before blooming.

Sessile Trillium... Trillium chloropetalum

Wild Ginger    Asarum caudatum

Wild Ginger flower

Pacific Bleeding Heart   Dicentra formosa

Red Columbine   Aquilegia formosa

Fringecup   Tellima Grandiflora

Broad-leaved Bluebells   Mertensia platyphylla

Pacific Waterleaf   Hydrophyllum tenuipes

Piggy-back Plant  (Youth-on-Age)     Tolmiea menziesii

Mountain Sweet-cicely   Osmorhiza berteroi

March 2020 woodland lilies and more

On Sunday, March 8, friend Paul Sullivan hiked through our woods with us and kindly took photos of  the Columbia (tiger) lilies that had sprung up since my last trip down there on March 5. My camera was not cooperating... turned out that I had not replaced the card after uploading the last batch of photos to the computer!

Here it is on March 25, after I put the card back in my camera...

Paul also took pics on March 8 of the possible-lily that I've had caged to protect it from deer because it gets devoured by something every year and never blooms.

To my great surprise, on March 10, just two days after Paul's photos, that plant had a bud!! This is the first time ever it has managed to get that far. With camera card in, I took photos. I also put dog hair around it, and also around the Columbia (tiger) lilies along the path, to deter deer. They don't like that predator smell and that has helped save my Alaska Yellow Cedar from bucks rubbing their antlers on them in the fall.

The single leafed plant near this mystery flower still has a single leaf. Another wee single leaf has popped up in the ground behind it. You can just barely see behind and left of the big leaf in the photo below. (Still looked like this on March 25.)

On March 25, the Fritillaria lanceolata (for that's what Howard Bruner says it is) had added stripes to its bud. And outgrown the cage. I will take more dog hair down...

I saw the very first wood violet in bloom on March 10.

A few Western Trillium are blooming.

But the Sessile Trillium are still just in bud...

On March 25, I also walked through the Ash swamp and saw apparent iris. I don't remember seeing iris there before. I'll watch for them to bloom later in the spring.

In our little creek, the skunk cabbage is blooming... a sure sign it's spring.