My Secret Garden
field of flowers
daisies
I have written about my vegetable garden before, but I have another garden, a secret garden. It’s not secret because it’s hidden, on the contrary, it’s in full sight of everyone. No, it’s secret because I do nothing to make it grow, nothing to make it flower. My secret garden is the wild flowers around me, which I find as beautiful as any domestic garden I have seen.
wild flower
There are lots of different sorts of flowers in my garden. Even the dandelions of spring are a part of it, fields of yellow that are just lovely to see, and which provide the emerging bees with some of their early-season food. For the most part, I don’t know the names of these plants. If anyone does, please, let me know!
There are lots of these daisy-like flowers, simple yellow-and-white things. I have no idea what the blue flowers below them are called, but the bees love them. So do I, the way the pink buds open to reveal blue flowers is quite something. They’re not quite as common as some of the other plants, and the flowers are a little more hidden below the upper leaves, so they’re a bit harder to find. But they’re worth it.
verbascum thapsus
beetles on verbascum thapsus
Then there’s one that I can name, Verbascum Thapsus, above. I learned their name quite by chance when my good friend Shannon mentioned them in her “Wildlife in Summer” blog-post recently. She has a photo of some of them flowering on a rooftop, having somehow found room to put out roots. According to Wikipedia, Verbascum Thapsus is a biennial, so those plants had been there for a while! They flower tall and bright, and they flower for a long time. I bet that if they were annuals instead of biennials, they would be popular with gardeners.
thistles
trichodes nuttalli on thistle
Thistles are commonly regarded as weeds, but the flowers are really quite pretty. The thistle has been the emblem of Scotland for over 700 years, and the story of how that happened is rather amusing.
I found this ‘Checkered beetle’ (Trichodes Nuttalli) on a thistle very close to my home. I’d never seen a beetle quite like this before, he’s really very colourful. Thanks to “The Marvellous in Nature” for a post just a week or two ago which identifies this critter!
spiky flowering plant
pink flower
This next lot, I have no idea what any of them are called. The spiky plant above is
yellow flower
Then there are some more familiar plants, like the poppies that come up everywhere in spring and the pale blue cornflowers that follow them in summer. The flowers change with the seasons, but there are always so many to see, all through the spring and summer. I’ve only mentioned a few in this post, maybe I’ll show you some more of my secret garden later on. Stay tuned!
poppy at edge of cornfield
(Possibly) related posts:
Tags: Shannon Ryan, Verbascum Thapsus, Poppy, Thistle, Wild flowers
August 9th, 2009 at 23:32
Thanks for the link! I’m glad my post helped with your beetle ID.
Your spikey plant is teasel, Dipsacus fullonum, a plant native to Europe and introduced to North America. It has the extremely rare flowering pattern of starting in the middle and then progressing in two bands toward the top and bottom (most flowers start either at the top or the bottom and only go one way). It’s a biennial, each plant living only two years, but their seeds are very sturdy and it grows very easily, so it often pops up in disturbed habitat like roadsides and fields.
The blue “wild flower” is Viper’s Bugloss, Echium vulgare, another European native that’s been introduced to North America. Like teasel, it also grows easily and quickly in areas that have been disturbed, such as roadsides.
The daisies are actually a type of fleabane, maybe Daisy Fleabane though I’m not sure. Historically the dried flower heads were used to help rid a house of fleas, hence the common name fleabane.
The pink flower is a type of mallow, but I’m not sure which just off the top of my head.
August 9th, 2009 at 23:36
Oops! I just double-checked your location, and it looks like you’re well within the native range of most of those flowers. They’re such common plants around here, it didn’t even occur to me. So your fleabane and mallow may be different species from those we have in my area.
August 10th, 2009 at 08:57
thanks for the IDs! I’d noticed the teasel was flowering in bands and thought it odd, I didn’t know it does that habitually. It’s a shame it’s a biennial, not an annual, I’d happily grow some for our local birds to feed on in winter but I don’t really have the space for something that will take too long to give a result.
I had a feeling the pink flower might be a mallow, it looks very much like one in a post at Hagbourne Wildlife recently. I’m going to have to get myself a good field-guide, I need to know more about what I’m pointing the camera at!
August 16th, 2009 at 09:54
Hi Tony – your yellow flower is a Hypericum. Not sure if Geneva has the same species in the wild as we have in Britain.
August 16th, 2009 at 10:16
Thanks! Looking them up, it seems they are widespread in distribution, so it could well be the same species you get in the UK. I can see I need to get me a good field-guide!