Saturday, April 6, 2013

Cultivating Wildflowers



I have always loved wildflowers. I love just about all flowers except for skunk cabbage (but that's another blog post story all together). Roses are beautiful as are tulips and daffodils and all the other hybrid beauties that can be found in the garden but there is a simple pure beauty in a wildflower that  despite all their vibrant colors and flashiness, a hybrid just can't compete with.  Another admirable quality about wildflowers is their tenacity. Many of them don't seem as fussy about care and for the most part take care of themselves. I found these lovely bloodroot flowers literally on the roadside one year. They come back faithfully every year and poke up through the gravel and leaves. People must think I'm crazy when they drive by to see somebody crouching on the roadside with a camera pointed at the ground trying to capture their fleeting blossoms. These pure white early spring flowers have easily become my favorite Virginia wildflower. There were so many of them that I carefully dug up one small one and put it in my pocket for the rest of my walk. When I got home to our property on the mountainside I planted it in a shady moist spot where a spring runs when it rains really hard. On the way home from work today I stopped to see how it was doing after a day and so far so good. The leaves looked happy and were not wilted at all so I'm hoping it will take hold. I planted it next to our driveway so it should be at home on a roadside again. Maybe if I'm lucky one day it will spread and I will have my own little wildflower garden next to our driveway. Perhaps this will be the beginning of more wildflower gardens on our property. I can not claim credit for this idea to start cultivating wildflowers however.  My mom is the inspiration. Years ago she planted trilliums on their property in Oregon and although my Mom isn't around to admire their beauty anymore, the trilliums are thriving and are still there for my Dad to admire and remember some of her beauty that she left behind. So as I set out on my walk to see if the bloodroot flowers were blooming yet I was on a mission not just to capture some photos but to also bring one home to spread their beauty to our part of the mountain. Maybe one day when I'm not around anymore the flowers I planted will bring  joy to somebody else like these little wildflowers bring to me. Hopefully this will be just the first addition to my wildflower garden. I'd also like to add Virginia Blue Bells and maybe some milkweed for the monarch butterflies too. Stay tuned :-)

 


 

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