Creekside Wildflowers

wildflowers along a creek
Creekside Wildflowers

Autumn wildflowers aren’t nearly as showy as spring wildflowers, but their lacy forms create clouds of shape and texture and delicate color, especially along a water’s edge.

These wildflowers are growing right along Chartiers Creek in Carnegie, and that’s the neat thing about wildflowers—they’ll spring up anywhere they can find a bit of soil for roots.

Starting from the left…

The yellow flowers are evening primrose, a native biennial that opens as its name predicts, in the evening. The flowers are just opening here.

The deep violet flowers are purple loosestrife, an non-native invasive perennial that was popular in gardens but which has escaped and is very successful growing along the edge of any body of water. It’s not too abundant here, but in areas where it becomes established it crowds out native plants that feed local songbirds and attract native insects for pollination.

Near the center, at about 11:00, there is one stem visible from blue vervain, another native with tiny seeds that finches love.

The fuzzy pink flowers are joe-pye weed, a native annual, and can grow anywhere from one to six feet tall with curved umbels of soft pink flowers.

On the right you can see a spray of pink flowers. I first saw this several years ago and simply could not identify it with any of my guide books. Then two years ago I saw a specimen in a conservation garden and thought I’d marked it in my book when I got home, but no. I’ll have to go out and find it again.

0 Comments

  1. Steve–thanks for visiting from Texas! check under my “special slideshows” for “local nature walks” and “from my back yard”. I’ve been working on documenting our local flora in an artsy style, organized by bloom time.

    1. Yes, and I’m equally fascinated with what grows in your deserts and short winters. I’m just glad when I see conserved areas so that we can learn again what is meant to grow here and how it’s meant to grow.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Today

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading