Wildflowers of the island

While I enjoy flower gardens, I enjoy especially the natural gardens of wildflowers which Mother Nature produces every year. She is a clever one too since she orchestrates a succession of beauties, as some go to seed, other blooms take their place.

Now the lilacs and rockets of the roadsides and pathways are gone to seed. The daisies which spend some of their blooming time with those two, 

now commune with other blooms.The variety is lovely. 

Vetch, in its pink/purple beauty attracts bees 

as do the wild roses which are also in abundance. 

Red Clover grows tall, reaching for the sun in a crowded field, as does St. John’s Wort.

Numerous Broadleaf Meadowsweet blossoms line pathways now 

as Goats Beard claims a spot along an embankment. 

Some are gone to seed.

A close look on a sandy trail reveals Red Sand Spurrey, a tiny bloom about the size of a baby’s little fingernail.

It looks like a succulent and is easy to miss although it is worth one’s time. A tiny blossom on a vine among the shrubs, is easy to miss too. Bittersweet Nightshade looks delicate but its purple blooms with yellow centres cause one to pause and admire them. 

Blue Flag Iris always catches my eye along a trail. 

One works hard in a garden to grow blooms half so pretty. Buttercups, familiar blooms of our childhood, are favourites of the ants.

Tall Meadow Rue is almost waist high among the shrubs 

and Spreading Dogbane is a shrub with tiny bells.

Along the shoreline at Rice Point, some familiar blooms along with Bedstraw and Large Hop Clover almost hide the fence along a property line.

Wildflowers are so much prettier than fences.    

Reaching for the sun

They reach for the sun along the pathways and trails, in the meadows, around rivers and ponds and along the seashore, anywhere they can get a root hold. A variety of colours, they give their best to creation, from seeds to plants, blooms, pollen and eggs. They colour our paths and brighten our days.

Wildflowers don’t need human prompting, they manage on their own just fine. Seeds, carried on the wind, by birds or other animals, sprout and reach into the soil. Before long, voilà! The leaves and showy blooms are reaching for the sun again.

Sometimes they stick with their own kind. 

What looks like one bloom per plant, such as bunchberry, 

or numerous clone-like blooms like yarrow are worth a look.

Various colours catch the eye, such as the yellow of St. John’s wort with the tiny stripes on its buds which look to be painted there.

The pink and white of bindweed is always a nice surprise as it climbs its way up and around shrubs. This may please onlookers but not the plant it climbs. 

One notices a white plant among the bushes but the details of this male Tall Meadow rue with the lemon anthers and white stamens are beautiful on closer look.

Blue Flag iris is always a nice addition to the banks of a wetland.

Even seed heads, such as this one of Yellow Goat’s beard, which resembles dandelion seeds, makes us stop for a look.

Pinks and white of Dame’s rockets fill the ditches and pathways. The natural beauty of the wild roses, rockets and clover along this section of trail by the sea is a seasonal treat.

And the most spectacular of all is the riot of colour when a variety of wildflowers share a space such as here

or here,

or here.

Mother Nature is an excellent gardener.