Flower for the Day American Burnweed 10-22-25

American burnweed  (Erechtites hieraciifolia) is a native annual in the aster family. The plant branches and grows in a clump with multiple stems.The flower heads which are borne in fall are followed by clusters of small, wispy achenes, each of which contains a single seed. 

The flower heads which are borne in fall are followed by clusters of small, wispy achenes, each of which contains a single seed. What does it remind you of?

Burnweed germinates in response to fire. It is one of the earliest pioneer species in areas that have recently burned, hence some of its common names: fireweed, pilewort and butterweed.

 Burnweed Haiku

  no dandelion 

  
  bold burnweed soars, shares nectar

 a butterfly's wish

  johackl

Don's Blog Fall Odds and Ends 10-20-25

We  actually had some rain over the week-end -a full Day soak. Magically brown has turned to green. Now for some fall odds and ends fun. Here are some berries from our Scarlet firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea). They almost allow you to forget how sharp the thorns are.

The persimmons are on the trees and beginning to drop. when fully mature they are sweet and delicious. 

If not - very bitter.

Here is a small tree with many persimmons and no leaves.

On the trail if you look down the juniper berries are collecting.

And if you look close there is an occasional surprise.

Closer to home the deer have eaten the leaves off my favorite stonecrop.

But its nature is to produce its amazing flowers however small.

            Yard Work

I think that someone will remember us in another time,

Sappho once said — more or less— 

Her words caught 

Between the tongues tip and the first edge of the invisible.

I hope so, myself now caught 

Between the edge of the landscape and the absolute,

Which is the same place, and the same sound

That she made.

Meanwhile, let's stick to business.

Everything else does, the landscape, the absolute, the invisible.

My job is yard work— 

I take this inchworm, for instance, and move it from here to there.

Charles Wright

Don's Blog: A Peaceful Place

Here is a view from the dock at the Lake House, truly a place to experience

the peace that passes all understanding.

Flower for the Night Moon Flower II

I thought you would enjoy some followup images of moon flowers. These are blooming nightly

on the front porch and they last into the morning. 

They are surprisingly large,

especially in relationship to the morning glory.

But the most fun is to go out after dark and enjoy them.

Flower for the Day Oriental Lady's Thumb 10-15-25

Here is another meadow miniature which requires you bend way down to see it. It is oriental lady's thumb
(Persicaria posumbu). Its other names include Asiatic smartweed, bristled knotweed, bunchy knotweed, and long-bristled smartweed. Those without imagination may call it a weed. It is a non native Asian annual.

Flower for the Day New England Aster 10-13-25

This is aster time in the Heartland and elsewhere. New England aster (Symphotrychium novae-anglia,formerly Aster novae-angliae) has been fairly deer hardy. It is one of my few plants that re-grow from the deer eaten-off tips that can still bloom, although it does make them shorter. It is also known as the Michaelmas daisy. It is a perennial native.

The genus name, Symphyotrichum, is a Botanical Latin construction derived from the Greek meaning to make or bring together and hair. The species' former genus, Aster, comes from the Ancient Greek word for star.  

The  flowers have multiple ray florets. These surround the flower centers which are composed of just as many tiny yellow disk florets. The plant grows naturally in clumps, with several erect stems emerging from a single point. The stems are stout, hairy, and mostly unbranched. The untoothed, lance-shaped leaves clasp the stem with earlobe-like appendages, and the lower stem leaves often wither by the time of flowering. 

And mine come in two colors.

    New England Asters

They're firing purple from the rock wall,
shouting hurrahs amid gloriosas,
towering on leggy stalks
near the rose trellis, before the frost.

The dames are taking over.
Fringy and sticky, drunk with nectar,
they lean and swagger,
staging a revolution.

Volunteers from last year's seeds
spring up near the house,
and new forces bivouac
down the long dirt drive,
ready to occupy the roadside
past the mailbox.

Shovel in hand, I am fully enlisted
in the cause of late bloomers.
I transplant rootstock,
shake out new progeny,
post ensigns amid the wan and cheerless,
marshal troops down desolate hollows,
seed my universe with stars.

Lynn Ascrizzi

Flower for the Day Moonflower 10-8-25

The moonvine has finally begun to produce its extraordinary moonflowers (Ipomoeae alba). It is a night blooming morning glory. The large buds have begun blooming almost nightly.

Here is our first bloom with the supermoon. 

 

The flower is spectacular. It opens quickly in the evening and lasts through the night, 

remaining open until touched by the morning dew.

 

Moonflowers

Milly Sorensen, January 16, 1922 - February 19, 2004

It was the moonflowers that surprised us.

Early summer we noticed the soft gray foliage.

She asked for seedpods every year but I never saw them in her garden.

Never knew what she did with them.

Exotic and tropical, not like her other flowers.

I expected her to throw them in the pasture maybe,

a gift to the coyotes. Huge, platterlike white flowers

shining in the night to soften their plaintive howling.

A sound I love; a reminder, even on the darkest night,

that manicured lawns don't surround me.

Midsummer they shot up, filled the small place by the back door,

sprawled over sidewalks, refused to be ignored.

Gaudy and awkward by day,

by night they were huge, soft, luminous.

Only this year, this year of her death

did they break free of their huge, prickly husks

and brighten the darkness she left.

Karma Larsen

Flower for the Day Dahlia II 10-6-25

The dahlias have been slow to bloom with the changing weather, the alternating hot and cool with the continuing dryness, despite my watering. We are seeing more recently. They continue to amaze.

This is what we have been doing with them.

                 The Dahlias

By now the fields are overgrown,

most ironweed and parsnip have turned black,

even the closed cabinet doors milk pods

have burst open, spilling their shucked silk

into the day. I wear a coat

and remember August, those nights

filled with moths that like fireworks

put on a show at our window, 

circled the lights like monks in meditation.

At every new cycle, I miss the one

now gone. I am never happy and have

no excuse not to love the dying

season, the growing season, the season of sleep.

That is to say, to love it while it is

happening. But what of the fall dahlias

that like bodices planets float above

their roots and leaves?Surely they contain all

the colors of our universe, They must love

the cooler days, the beginning

of a time of rest, less forced display.

Take it easy I will say. But the wind 

has something else in mind.

That might perform a roundelay

or the danse macabre. In time 

we all have bones, our eyeholes hollowed

and our skeletons clattering like chimes.

Didi Jackson

Flower for the Day Morning Glory 10-3-25

I did not plant any new morning glory (Ipomeoea) this year so those that showed up came from last years seeds.

as the  name suggests, most morning glory flowers open early in the day and begin to fade by late morning, as the corolla starts to curl inward. What you see here is pink morning glory growing within many moonflower vine leaves a front porch pillar. The morning glory has been blooming for a month but the moon vine has only just begun blooming in the last week. What is also obvious is that the deer has eaten all the low hanging flowers and leaves but not the vines.

 

Here are some morning glory survivors. 

 Morning Glory/Late Lament 

Cold hearted orb that rules the night,

Removes the colours from our sight.

Red is grey and yellow white,

But we decide which is right.

And which is an illusion?

Pinprick holes in a colourless sky,

Let insipid figures of light pass by,

The mighty light of ten thousand suns,

Challenges infinity and is soon gone.

Night time, to some a brief interlude,

To others the fear of solitude.

Brave Helios wake up your steeds,

Bring the warmth the countryside needs.

//

Breathe deep the gathering gloom,

Watch lights fade from every room.

Bedsitter people look back and lament,

Another day's useless energy spent.

Impassioned lovers wrestle as one,

Lonely man cries for love and has none.

New mother picks up and suckles her son,

Senior citizens wish they were young.

Cold hearted orb that rules the night,

Removes the colours from our sight.

Red is grey and yellow white,

But we decide which is right.

And which is an illusion?   

Graeme Edge  

(A  beautiful poem spoken in two parts in the Moody Blues album 'Days of Future Passed')

Flower for the Day Celosia 10-1-25

We have had a huge crop of celosia (Celosia cristata) for many years. It is an edible oriental in the Amaranthacea

family and is native to East Africa. When the flower head is crested by fasciation as shown it is called cockscomb.

Its other name , celosia spicata, is seen in the spiky flowers below the cockscomb.

One of the issues with it being edible is that this year the  deer have been savaging them, so much so that I covered this one with deer netting. This created its own problem - I saw some movement and there was a swallowtail butterfly trapped in the netting. I carefully freed it up and it immediately landed on my nose. I was so surprised that I let it stay there for awhile and then nudged it off.

           Cockscombs;

        There should be
        Fourteen or fifteen.
 

             Shiki

             trans. Blyth

"Every masterpiece is a flower on a precipice to be picked only with spiritual danger. The risk is life itself. It is too much to hope every poetry-lover will unfailingly grasp all subtleties of the creative act, but no artistic masterpiece exists without the danger of its being misunderstood. It is a tremendous assertion for the poet to have said, 'There must be fourteen or fifteen stalks of cockscomb.' After we read this poem we cannot imagine the possibility there could have been more or fewer cockscomb than fourteen or fifteen."

   Keene