Wildflower Wednesday: Joe-Pye Weed

Welcome to Clay and Limestone's Wildflower Wednesday celebration. This month's star is Joe-Pye Weed, which has recently undergone a name change from Eupatorium to Eutrochium. What ever the name, they're  big, beautiful rough and tumble wildflowers that bloom in the middle of our hot, humid summers.

Colossal, bodacious, statuesque, and tough are just a few of words I've heard gardeners use to describe one of my favorite summer pollinator magnets.

They are a quintessential Clay and Limestone rough and tumble wildflower and only require a little special care! They do need to be well established (watered in well the first year) to handle a hot, dry summer and even then a planting might need a big gulp of water once a week. I admit, the straight species is tall and can fall over in a heavy rain (we have those in the Middle South) and the foliage is often described as coarse; but, tall plants like the Joes can be cut back to keep them bushy. Their leaves and deep colored stems are assets in my garden, offering contrast and texture next to the small leaved Echinaceas, Coreopsis, Rudbeckias and Phlox.

I almost always prefer the straight species, but, in this case, the species might be too big and too wild for most gardens! Don't despair, they've tamed this beauty without taking away its best characteristics.

This one plant has a lot going on~ color, texture, beauty and wildlife value

Smaller cultivars like E dubium 'Baby Joe', at under three feet might be just what you're looking for or if you have more space E maculatum 'Gateway',  E maculatum 'Phantom' and E dubium 'Little Joe', will stay under 6 feet. You can always cut them back in the early summer, the plant will be bushier, but the flowers will be smaller.

 If you want drama and have the space, go for the straight species.

Joe-Pyes have prominent petal-like rays, but no petals

What about in my garden? 'Baby Joe' is new this year and seems to have settled in. Yes, I do a deep watering once a week if we don't get rain. 'Gateway', 'Phantom', 'Little Joe' and species E fistulosa are well established but, an extended drought will severely impact them, so they also get supplemental watering during our long, hot and humid summer.

They are magnets for butterflies, bumbles, honeybees, and other pollinators

What all the Joe-Pyes have in common (species doesn't matter) are great big mauve/lavender-pink flower heads that bloom late summer into the fall. The flower head is made up of 8 to 20 petal-less disk flowers, each with 2 long stringy styles and 5 tiny lobes

 They're beautiful, bodacious wildflowers.

Easily grown in average soils, they do prefer, moist, fertile, humusy soils in full sun. Do yourself a favor, let the fluffy brown flower heads stand all winter. They make a wonderful winter statement.

Silvery Checkerspot perching on E fistulosum

If you garden for wildlife this is a must have plant, but, you don't have to take my word for it, just watch the pollinators that visit it all day long. 

xoxogail

Just the facts:

Family: Asteracea
Genus: Eutrochium (formerly Eupatorium)
Species: purpureum, maculatum, fistulosa, dubium
Cultivars: 'Little Joe', 'Baby Joe', 'Gateway', 'Purpureum' and 'Phantom'
Color(s): purple, rose flowers
Soil: Fertile, moist, clay, loam, silt
Sun Exposure: Full sun/partial sun/morning shade/evening sun~It will lean toward the sun if it's too shady
Water Needs: Water well first year, does not like drought
Average Height: 3 ft. - 7 ft.
Average Spread: 1 ft. -3 ft.
Attracts: Butterflies, Bees and other pollinators
Native: Native to US and Canada.
Plant Hardiness Zone: 2 - 9
Propagation: Seed, cuttings, division. The florets produce wind-dispersed achenes (small dry seed with hair-like bristles).
How to use: A good looking plant for water's edge, the back of the border or if you're like me, right in the middle of your sunny border.  Looks great with tall native grasses, Rudbeckias, Ironweed, Solidagos and Coreopsis. Attractive fluffy seed heads persist well into winter.
Comments: If you are absolutely opposed to watering and have seriously dry summers, the Joes aren't for you.

Wildflower Wednesday is about sharing wildflowers all over this great big beautiful world. It doesn't matter if we sometimes show the same plants, how they grow and thrive in your garden is what matters most. I hope you join the celebration...It's always the fourth Wednesday of the month!

Thanks for stopping by to help celebrate wildflowers.



Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Pollinator of the Day: Bumble on Joe!

I love the Joes, but then what's not to love with those big beautiful mauve/lavender-pink flower heads that bloom all summer and attract almost every kind of pollinator that visits the garden.

If you want the full story on the Joes that live at Clay and Limestone go here...Perhaps, you'll find yourself thinking as I do, "So many Joe-Pyes and not nearly enough garden space."

xoxogail

I am on the mend.

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Garden Update: It's raining. Again.

 Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, just shaking my head with wonder and disbelief! It's August and we've had more rain than I can remember ever having during a Middle Tennessee summer. The Joe-Pye weed, Cup plant and Susans are thrilled. So is the moisture loving Cardinal flower and the new Hibiscus coccineus (planted last year). Even the plants that are in deepest shade under the Oak and Hickory canopy are thriving.

I've nothing to complain about, last year in the midst of the drought the entire garden needed extra watering to survive. By August the drought and the extreme heat brought the summer garden season to an early end. It went out with a whimper (or was that me) of crispness.

This year the moisture loving plants like the Joes are in their element, but, I've lost Asclepias tuberosa and Echinacea pallida, both plants that have been in my garden for years. They're tap rooted plants that need well draining soil and they rotted from the clay that has been sopping wet all summer. Consequently, I've been doing the Central Basin what should I plant dance since I pulled them out of the garden.

Traditionally,  this is a dance that one does while standing in the middle of the nursery aisles surrounded by plants in full bloom and enticingly beautiful. You take two steps forward and one step back while singing, "Will these xeric plants survive this winter or will I have to water the moisture lovers all summer?" This summer, I had to add another verse to the song, "Baby, we never know what next summer will bring, let's be smart about it..." Cha-cha-cha!

I'm a fairly smart Central Basin gardener and generally stick to tried and true natives and native friendly exotics, but, that doesn't mean I don't fall for a plant that needs more coddling than my rough and tumble wildflowers usually require.

H coccineus, a marsh loving plant that I hope can survive our usually dry summer

Take the Scarlet rosemallow that was added last fall. It's a marsh resident in most of the Southeastern states (not a Tennessee native) that has thrived with our steady winter, spring and summer rains. I'm crossing my fingers that it gets well established and continues to be happy at Clay and Limestone. That rose flower has me smitten! Isn't is wonderful!

Usually, by this time of the summer my energy is spent and I am lounging around inside trying to keep cool and away from the skeeters. This year, the weather has not only been wetter, it's been cooler. We've had fewer than 5 days with temperatures above 90F. Gardening has been a treat and even the mosquitoes haven't been able to keep most of us out of the garden.

I know, it's amazing!

So when I say it's raining again, please know that I really am appreciative of this amazing gift after years of drought and plant loss.
 

xoxogail

PS   To read more about our feature flower, the Joe-Pye weed ~Wildflower Wednesday: The Joes
       To read more about Rough and Tumble wildflowers~ Rough and Tumble Wildflowers
       To read more about gardening in the Central Basin~The Central Basin
       To read more about planting in Middle Tennessee~Not The Climate For Xeric
       To read more about why I plant natives~Plant More Natives

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Wildflower Wednesday 2012 Roundup

Verbesina virginica

Welcome to Clay and Limestone's 2012 Wildflower Wednesday December Roundup!  

Wildflower Wednesday is about sharing wildflowers/natives/naturally occurring plants no matter where you garden~the UK, tropical Florida, Europe, Australia, Africa, South America, India or the coldest reaches of Canada. It doesn't matter if we sometimes show the same plants, how they grow and thrive in your garden is what matters most.

I hope you join the celebration..It's always the fourth Wednesday of the month!
 
Without further ado,  here are the best and brightest of Clay and Limestone's 2011 wildflowers.

 January's Bee-Witching Flowers

Hamamelis vernalis

Hamamelis vernalis is a lovely native shrub that blooms when you have just about given up hope that winter will end and warmth will return to the world...Unless, you live in my Middle Tennessee garden and you're wondering where the heck winter has gone! 


February's Poverty Oat Grass

Danthonia spicata won't be found among the ornamental grasses offered by most nurseries.  It isn't a big sexy grass with showy inflorescence, but, it has much to offer for gardeners who love native plants.  It will grow on dry, rocky and poor soils, has attractive twisted beige winter foliage, great  wildlife value and is delightful when allowed to grow and set seed. Trust me, it's a wonderful lawn alternative for tough spots!

March's Passalong Plant~Collinsea verna

One look at those bicolored flowers and you'll know why I walk the garden looking for seedlings of Collinsea verna in late winter and early spring.  Don't you think the blue and white petals are a perfect match for a spring sky. Sigh.  It's a sweet little annual that deserves to be sown in many more gardens... 

April's Never Fail Wildflower Favorites

Tradescantia virginiana

Spiderwort, Entireleaf Western Daisy, Practically Perfect Pink Phlox pilosa, Penstamin X are just a few of the mainstays of my Spring garden. They are a part of the Rough and Tumble wildflowers that make Clay and Limestone the garden it is today.

May's The Dragons At The Bottom Of The Garden

Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium) is a  marvelous woodland wildflower that is happiest in dappled sunlight and a moist, rich woodland soil and yet, it's tolerant of our wet winters and dry summers. If it's happy you'll have a nice colony that disappears mid-summer leaving behind the red/orange ripened seed head that topples to the ground and spills seeds everywhere. 

June's Fill Your Garden With Native Plants

You'll never be sorry if you fill your garden with plants native to your part of the gardening world. I know I'm not...My garden is a Central Basin plant community with plants native to cedar glades and the adjacent oak-hickory-red cedar forests. Anyone who has gardened near here knows we have heavy, nearly neutral clay soils that sit atop a limestone bedrock.  It's shallow and sticky wet all winter and dry as concrete all summer.  It took me awhile, but, I eventually figured out, that in order to have a garden that was beautiful and thrived, I was going to have to plant natives. Tough natives!
 
July's The Joes

I'm talking about the Joe-Pye-Weeds, aka as Eupatorium dubium, E. fistulosum, E. maculatum, E. purpureum and E dubium (aka Eutrochium). What all the Joe-Pyes have in common are great big mauve/lavender-pink flower heads that are magnets for butterflies, Bumbles and other pollinators. Can't you tell those beautiful flower heads are the perfect feeding and perching stations for nectar seeking butterflies.

August's Two Native Verbenas

I love Verbenas...and the purple flowers of Verbena hastata and Verbena/Glandularia canadensis 'Homestead Purple' are a treat to the eyes when all the Susans are in bloom!

September's Asteraceaes Rock

Here in Tennessee we have 320 different species (world wide there are over 23,000 recognized asteraceae species).  One could say that from Spring through fall they rock my garden.  In fact, I wouldn't have a garden without them.

October's Little Asters Everywhere

I fell head over heals in love with the blue and lilac flowers that were all over the yard and covered with bees and butterflies when we moved into this house 26 years ago. They so captured my heart, that I built the garden around them. These ex-asters look fantastic when they are allowed to plant themselves with abandon throughout the garden. If you can go with the flow you'll be rewarded with a blue cloud of shimmering flowers that bloom until frost...But, if you need more order, they are magnificent in mixed borders.

November's Hypercolored Hypericum Heaven

Hoky smokes gardeners! Tear out your Burning Bush, rip out your Barberry and trash your Nandinas and replace them with Hypericum frondosum!  You will love its  hyper-colored fall display, the exfoliating bark, the blue green summer foliage, and the pollinator magnet golden sunburst flowers.

My dear friends, Thank you for planting more wildflowers, thank you for taking care of the bees and all the  pollinators, thank you for tolerating pesky wildlife, and, thank you for another year of your friendship, visits, comments and joining me in celebrating wildflowers all over this great big wonderful world. You are the best and having you in my life has enriched it beyond measure.

xoxogail

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Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.