Echinaceas in the Garden

Looking back at posts from earlier years, I see that I usually do an entry about coneflowers every summer. This year, the summer has zipped past and we are sliding into autumn. I just have time to get my annual echinacea post looked after.

After daylilies, coneflowers may be my favorite garden flowers, though it would be hard to choose. I enjoy both the traditional varieties and newer hybrids that come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours. Pictured above are my oldest plants, the reliable Magnus on the right, and slightly shorter Ruby Star on the left. They combine nicely with daylilies, grasses and other perennials for a natural look.

Ruby Star

I took this photo of Ruby Star one morning after a night of rain caused the heads of Panicum virgatum ‘Prairie Sky’, switchgrass or panic grass, to droop over the flowers like a sparkling veil. Once the sun dried the grass, it lifted its head from the flowers.

Secret Romance and Red Admiral

My favorite thing about coneflowers is the way they attract butterflies. I have found that all varieties, even the puffy new hybrids appeal to an assortment of butterflies. Pictured above is a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) visiting Secret Romance.

Here’s a bank of coneflowers performing in the garden. Echinaceas bloom over a number of weeks. This grouping features Secret Romance on the left, Milkshake, and Now Cheesier. The traditional coneflower at the back of the grouping is Prima Donna. I tried Now Cheesier in three locations in the garden before finally hitting on a spot that allowed it to thrive. Gardening is like real estate. It’s all about location, location, location!

Secret Romance

Milkshake

Now Cheesier

This entrance to a garden path is quite heavily shaded. It receives a few hours of direct sun from about mid afternoon, so is not ideal for coneflowers. However, a couple of my favorites do well here, the bright red mophead Hot Papaya and the amazingly green Green Jewel.

Hot Papaya

Green Jewel

Green Jewel

One of the first double coneflowers to hit the market was Doubledecker, which produces a funny cap of stray petals at the top of its cone. It’s not very reliable at producing even these few stray petals. Oh how things have changed since those early days!

Doubledecker

Here’s the orangey coneflower, Marmalade.

Marmalade

I try to add a new variety or two to the garden each year. This year, I planted Supreme Cantaloupe in the spring. This photo illustrates the way the flowers start out flat and gradually change colour and form as they mature. Meteor Yellow is also new. These two plants have yet to survive a trial by winter.

Supreme Cantaloupe

Yellow Meteor

I’ll close with two traditional varieties that do well for me, the white Alba and the tidy 2-foot tall Prairie Splendor.

Alba

Prairie Splendor

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Butterflies in the Meadow

The meadow is a good spot to do some butterfly watching. As I walked through the field, I spotted an assortment of these most beautiful of insects. The most abundant butterflies are the well-known Cabbage Whites (Pieris rapae) and the yellow Clouded Sulphurs. Cabbage whites are an introduced species and they have certainly made themselves at home in their new range. They first arrived in Quebec around 1860. Within 20 years, cabbage whites had expanded their range to include the eastern half of the continent and now range coast to coast. The flight of cabbage whites is quick and erratic and they rarely settle for long, making them hard to capture photographically and I didn’t pursue any. Cabbage whites are considered agricultural pests if you grow cabbage. If not, they are cheerful, lively garden visitors.

Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice)

Clouded sulphurs (Colias philodice) are also ubiquitous and are found across much of the continent. These pretty pale yellow butterflies can be found in a variety of open habitats, from hayfields and meadows to open woodlands, roadsides and lawns. Like cabbage whites, they are very active, but I captured a photograph of this one settled on a cluster of boneset flowers. I love the dainty pinkish edging featured on the underwings and the little double spot. It’s said that adding some white clover to your lawn mix will draw sulphurs to your yard.

American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis)

This American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis) didn’t oblige me by spreading her wings before taking off and disappearing. However, it can be identified by the two large eyespots on a dark background that can be seen on the lower edge of the hindwing. American Ladies are unable to survive our cold northern winters and populations move here from the south each summer. It’s easy to attract American Lady butterflies to your yard. Just plant Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea). It’s a lovely little native perennial, easy to grow, an enjoyable addition to the garden and a magnet for American Ladies. You may not see the butterflies arrive, but they will leave their eggs. You’ll know they’ve been visiting when you see that the caterpillars have bound the leaves into a silky nest.

Pearly Everlasting

This little butterfly is a Common Ringlet (Coenonympha tullia). As the name suggests, they are common, widespread butterflies, but with their drab colouring, they’re not very conspicuous. The forewing is a pretty tawny orange and is marked by a single eye, while the hindwing is darker brown. They generally stay close to the ground in grassy areas. The caterpillars feed on grass and overwinter as caterpillars.

Common Ringlet (Coenonympha tullia)

There were a number of Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta) on the wing. They’re easily recognized by the bright bands of orange across their forewings and a matching band edging the hindwings. The underside of the wings looks quite different. The hind wing features a complex pattern of mottled browns with pale buff along the margin, while the forewing has bands of red-orange, white and a touch of blue along the leading edge. Red admirals will come to flowers for nectar, but they also enjoy rotting fruit juices and tree sap. It is a resident in areas with mild winters and populations move north in the spring. Their larval plants are members of the nettle family.

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)

Red Admiral, wings closed.

Finally, this last “butterfly” isn’t a butterfly at all. It’s a moth, a Celery Looper (Anagrapha falcifera), a native of the United States and southern Canada. It is considered a pest because the caterpillars eat holes in the leaves of lettuce, celery, and other crops but it is generally a minor nuisance. They also feed on a wide variety of native plants. The adults can often be found visiting flowers during the day. This one was visiting boneset. The small white marking on the wing is a helpful identifying feature.

Celery Looper (Anagrapha falcifera)

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Painful Reminder

I was out doing a bit of weeding in the garden the other day. The weeds had a bit of a start on me because I have been waiting for the hostas, which are slow to stand up and be counted, to let their presence be known. That’s my excuse, anyway. My mind was wandering as I tidied up around the hosta tips and a patch of daylilies, and my unattended hand reached out and grabbed a handful of errant greenery, intending to tug it out by the roots. YOW! Now I remember why I usually put on gardening gloves. Stinging nettle!

According to my guide book, brushing against stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) produces an immediate stinging pain and sometimes red welts, searing burns that seldom last long but can be intense for a few moments. When you actually grab hold of a handful of it, the nasty tingling and ‘pins and needles’ can last for a couple of days, speaking from personal experience. The ‘stingers’ are glandular hairs (trichomes), which cover the stem and leaf surfaces. The hairs have a bulb-like tip that breaks off when touched, exposing sharp little needles that inject chemical irritants from their basal sacs.

The ‘stingers’ mainly protect the plant from herbivores, but the plants are appreciated by a number of insects. In particular, the Question Mark (Polygonia interrogationis),the Eastern Comma (P. comma) and Milbert’s tortoiseshell (Nymphalis milberti) butterflies may feed on stinging nettle as caterpillars. Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) butterflies are said to rely quite exclusively on nettles. The caterpillars fold over a leaf and line it with silk. They use the leaf as a resting place and later pupate there.

Stinging nettle prefers open, sunny areas and is often found in the vicinity of gardens and dwellings. In North America, there is both a native subspecies (Urtica dioica gracilis) and an introduced European subspecies (U. d. dioica). Worldwide, there are 25 Urtica species. In Europe, nettle fibres were used for centuries to weave linen fabric. In World War I, Germany raised nettle to produce “nettle cloth”, for use in tents and other durable fabric products. Cooking removes the sting from the plant, and young shoots and tender top leaves can be eaten as greens. The leaves are rich in vitamins A and C and iron, and can be used to make a nutritious tea. This Nettles for Vitality post offers this information:

The leaves and stems of stinging nettles are rich in iron, potassium, manganese, calcium, iodine, beta-carotene, vitamin C, and the B-complex vitamins, and have long been used in northern climes to improve vitality. The Gaelic saint Columba favored nettle broth during his sojourn on Iona. Four centuries later and half a world away, the great Tibetan yogi Milarepa acquired a greenish complexion from years of subsisting entirely on nettle soup while meditating in a cave.

Some butterfly garden manuals recommend growing stinging nettle. In spite of its value, both as caterpillar food and a source of vitality, which really, I could use lots of, I’d sooner not have stinging nettles growing in my garden!

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