We've been doing a cooperative conservation program with the Department of Natural Resources on part of our family property. One of the projects was to plant a couple acres of wildflowers for the benefit of pollinators, then mow them at the end of the season to spread the seed and see what came up for the next growing season, which my brother did quite beautifully as last year's part of the project.
This year, I was curious to see what had come up in the pollinator patch and there were some colorful delights. I should have walked over to see it earlier in the season, but the late summer was pretty lovely, too. There were lots of Black-eyed Susans liberally scattered across the field.
Blanket flower (a.k.a. gaillardia) and yarrow were also present in abundance.
I didn't walk through the whole field and there may be other wonders out there that made it through the winter and early spring drought, but the blanket flowers captured my attention and I thought it would be fun to share a few pictures. (The one above is a little out of focus, but it was so dramatic that I couldn't resist including it with its yarrow neighbor.)
The thing that I found so captivating about these flowers was the incredible number of variations on the theme of burgundy, orange and yellow. It seemed like each flower was a little different from all its fellows.
I don't know! Did the Wee Folk dance through the field wielding paints and brushes to decorate each petal? It sure seemed that way!
2 comments:
blanket flowers have so many different variations, that is partly what makes them so fun. And they reseed to keep it going.
Love wildflowers.
sheila
I love the wildflowers, too, Sheila! I hadn't seen so many different decorations on the blanket flowers before. It's interesting that it's a normal occurrence. I learn something new every day! :)
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