Monday, July 26, 2010

What's blooming in High Park, late July

[Photo: Desmodium canadense.]

I had a great time with the High Park Volunteer Stewardship Program pulling weeds in the Sculpture Garden restoration site yesterday. There are tons of flowers in bloom now:

Natives

  • Achillea millefolium (yarrow, achillée millefeuille)
  • Asclepias syriaca (milkweed, bébé lala de lait) (only a few are still blooming, most are setting seed)
  • Campanula rotundifolia (harebell, campanule à feuilles rondes)
  • Conyza canadensis (horseweed, vergerette du Canada)
  • Desmodium canadense (showy tick trefoil, desmodie du Canada) (shown above)
  • Erigeron annuus (daisy fleabane, vergerette annuelle)
  • Helianthus divaricatus (woodland sunflower, hélianthe à feuilles étalées)
  • Lobelia cardinalis (cardinal flower, lobélie cardinale)
  • Monarda fistulosa (wild bergamot, monarde fistuleuse)
  • some kind of Potentilla, maybe Potentilla fruticosa (shrubby cinquefoil, potentille arbustive)
  • Rudbeckia hirta (black-eyed Susan, rudbeckie dressée)
  • Silphium perfoliatum (cup plant, plante bain d'oiseaux)
  • Verbena stricta (hoary vervain, verveine veloutée)

Others

  • Cichorium intybus (chicory, chicorée sauvage)
  • Daucus carota (Queen Anne's lace, nid d'oiseau)
  • Melilotus alba (white sweet clover, mélilot blanc)
  • Pastinaca sativa (wild parsnip, panais sauvage)
  • Polygonum sp. (smartweed, renouée)
  • Trifolium pratense (red clover, trèfle violet)

We also saw a big wasp dragging a caterpillar to a hole she had previously dug, presumably to lay eggs on it. Although I felt sorry for the caterpillar, it was fascinating to watch. In Growing Green (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2006), an intriguing book about veganic food production, Jenny Hall and Iain Tolhurst recommend growing native plants near fields of crops to attract beneficial insects such as parasitic wasps.

2 comments:

  1. That's so nice that you volunteered! I tried to volunteer at the local parks department nursery near us, but they never got back to me. I guess they don't need volunteers.

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  2. It sounds like there's a lot to see there! Good for you getting out and helping them weed it up!

    ReplyDelete

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