After the heavy hitters of late summer are past--the Hibiscus, coneflowers, bonesets, et al--it's easy to think the season of native wildflowers is over, but this fall has been a surprise in the beauty and variety that nature held in reserve for these sweet autumn days.
One that's been a big hit at Herrontown Woods is Hearts-a-bustin', though I prefer to call it Hearts-a-burstin', because when I see it my heart does more burstin' than bustin'.This native euonymus (E. americanus) would be a common shrub in the forest if not for the deer, who love to eat it, stem and all. They keep it browsed down to a couple inches high, so we had to take some of those and grow them out in cages so that visitors could see the ornamental seed capsules on the shrubs, one of which has risen to eight feet thus far. It helps, too, for the ornamental seed production, if it's growing in a clearing where the trees aren't hogging all the direct sunlight, like our Princeton Botanical Art Garden.
A little earlier in the fall when the capsules were just starting to open, you could see why it is also called strawberry bush.
A few fall flowers in Herrontown Woods manage to bloom despite deep shade. Wood asters adorn some of the trails,
occasionally accompanied by a wreath goldenrod.
New England aster also brings color to the garden late in the season.
Bottlebrush grass is more of an understory grass, and unlike most native grasses it gets an early start in the spring.
In North Carolina, they had names like "giant," "showy," "woodland," and a rare one called "Schweinitzii." I knew giant sunflower (Helianthus giganteus) from only one derelict patch growing along a roadside outside of town, and decided to do it and myself a favor by taking a tiny bit of the patch and planting it in my garden and in a sunny opening in a nature preserve I managed in town. As often happens, what seemed like a species on the brink in the wild turned out to be prolific and expansive in the garden.
The sunflower in the photo, though, is sunchoke, a sunflower that has long carried the name Jerusalem artichoke. Each year, I think I'll eat its tubers, which I don't, even though they have an appealing nutty flavor when eaten raw, and can work well in a stirfry. And each spring, I attempt to pull out every last sprout, tired of its aggressive underground spread. Then in the fall, longing for summer blooms to continue, I am thankful to find that my eradication efforts have once again failed to completely stem the tide.
These are some of the flowers that ease the transition from summer's glory to a palette of browns and grays. Let their colors, and the rich spectrum of autumn leaves, penetrate deep into your soul, to carry you through the winter to come.
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