The garden is in an area designed as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. Because this part of Ontario was always, and still is, sparsely populated, with hardly any industry and no intensive farming, the flora and fauna are particularly rich.
The following pictures were all taken on roadsides, on June 24.
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| Wood lily |
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| Wood lily |
The Indian paintbrush, Castilleja coccinea, is semi-parasitic (hence it cannot be moved). By the side of the road, it tends to grow singly, but in fields it can grow in very large stands. You can see paint brushes in many colors in the North American west, but we only have the vermillion one, which is probably the most striking of the lot.
Usually growing directly on the rock is the harebell. Sometimes it grows together with the wood lilies.
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| Wood lily and harebells |
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| Harebells |
All of these can be found in dry, sunny areas. This is also the case of this short coreopsis. They are less common, but where they occur, they can be quite numerous.
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| Lanceleaf tickseed |
In ditches along roads where water accumulates you can see the northern blue flag (Iris versicolor), the floral emblem of Québec. They also grow in fields where they can be quite numerous.
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| Northern Blue Flag |
Still in wet spots, usually near culverts, you find the Canada anemone (Anemone canadensis) which grows in billowing masses. Do not import it into the garden as I did in our previous garden. It completely took over a shady area. It is beautiful, but it can be very invasive.
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| Canada anemone |
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| Canada anemone by a culvert, on the side of the road |
In damp places along roads you can see the swamp rose (Rosa palustris), which tends to be very short.
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| Swamp rose |
This last little plant I do not know. Perhaps some of you will. It is under a foot high and, as you can see, quite attractive. It grew with the coreopsis, in the gravel of a side road.
We have most of these flowers along our rural roadsides here. I remember Indian paintbrush as a child, but seldom see it now.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, flowers are not aware of international borders!
DeleteSo much beauty around us. I love the blue flag iris, I've got a yellow one in my little pond and it's flowered for the first time this year.
ReplyDeleteThe yellow one (pseudacorus) is very sturdy. Mine was given by a friend. Some pseudacorus are cream colour instead of yellow.
DeleteWood lily is my favorite flower. There's also a prairie variety . Parts of Sask. amn AB that are not developed are covered with them. It's the provincial flower for Sask.
ReplyDeleteThey must be much more common in the prairie. I have not seen many outside our area in Ontario.
DeleteI love seeing all the wild flower blooms at the sides of the roads.
ReplyDeleteLovely group of flowers; brings back many memories of exploring the roads up the Bruce Peninsula. Check out Seneca Snakeroot and see if it matches that last one. Looks like it to me.
ReplyDeleteYou are right. It is Seneca Snakeroot. I read that it is still used medicinally! It is a very attractive plant. Thank you!
DeleteI had no idea Indian Paintbrush grew in Ontario - I thought it was a plant of the high plains. Also didn't know it was semi-parasitic.
ReplyDeleteIt does grow around here and in some places North of us, but I don't think it does in most of Ontario.
DeleteYou have such beautiful wild flowers, so colourful, they must make driving a pleasure!
ReplyDeleteAlain hello there !
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that area was reserved as that. What a gorgeous lily .. I have never seen a wood lily before .. I would love to have that in my garden but at least I have a "lilium canadense" for quite a few years .. it has 5 buds on it this year so I am very excited about seeing what will unfold : ) Wonderful picture Alain !
Joy
So interesting that you are a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. And not surprisingly, you have some pretty nice roadside plants.
ReplyDeleteYou have some beautiful wild flowers. We have harebells and what we call wood anemones which are similar to your Canada anemone although not invasive and I do have some it my garden. It's a woodland plant as the name suggests.
ReplyDeleteThe wood lily is a stunner!
Hello Alain, those are some lovely wild flowers, I particularly like the wood lily, you can see its characteristics in the more more flamboyant oriental lilies, or it is the other way round?
ReplyDeleteThey must be distant relations!
DeleteQue de merveilles au bord des routes chez vous, ça fait rêver d'un voyage au Canada...
ReplyDeleteNous sommes dans un coin plutôt reculé - malheureusement, la flore le long de la majorité des routes n'est pas si riche.
DeleteBeautiful scenes. A lot of those wildflowers grow around here, too. In fact, I'm thinking maybe that last one is White Sweet Clover (Melilotus albus), which along with Yellow Sweet Clover is abundant this year. Indian Paintbrush is stunning, isn't it? I don't see many around here in southern Wisconsin, but I did see a lot of them up in Door County. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your visit. We must have pretty much the same climate and flora as Wisconsin. The inflorescence of the plant in the last picture looks indeed like that of Melilotus albus, but the plant turns out to be Polygala senega. It is probably even more common in Wisconsin than here.
DeleteNature is the best gardener.
ReplyDeleteAlain I' ve only just found this, I thought that you had not been posting for a long time and came over to have a look. Your posts have not been appearing so I will have to refollow you. This is a recurrent problem with WordPress.
ReplyDeleteWhat amazing wildflowers you have there, I' m so envious. They are gorgeous.