Mid-Summer Daylilies

A big part of the colour in our garden is the daylilies, which seem to be growing very healthily and putting out lots of blooms.  But the mid-point of the season is probably past, judging by the number of buds left, so the colour will gradually disappear through the rest of August. 

Do you know it was only a few years ago that I realized 'Daylilies' got their name because the blooms only last for a day!  I'm not the horticulturalist, just the undergardener!  And I gave up trying to find the name tags for all these, so just scroll through the pictures and enjoy the colour.

Colour in the Garden

As we pass the mid-point of summer, the colour in our garden is just spectacular.  The peak of colour does seem to mark the mid-summer season, with a lot of different flowers in bloom.  Now that we've adopted a more ruthless attitude to thinning things out, the colour seems to stand out more too.

This is the view from our deck that marks mid-summer in the main part of the garden.

Here you can see the red Crocosmia and deep pink Coneflowers and a purple Clematis behind some daylilies and the white Gooseneck Loosestrife.  Note the one tall Milkweed we've left in the hope of Monarchs.

This picture features several daylilies in front of the Crocosmia again, and Bear's Breeches, the narrow spiky plant in front of it.

In another part of the garden red Monarda, pink Coneflowers, white Daisies and yellow False Sunflowers mix together. We used to think this part of the garden was poorly organized; now we just think it's a beautiful mixture of colours!

Here are a number of interesting (mostly orange) daylilies in front of the taller Coneflowers, some Bear's Breeches in the background on the right.

Mostly a mixture of daylilies, nearly 10 varieties if you could count them.

 My favourite daylilies, Saugeen Sunrise, with a patch of False Sunflowers.

There are a lot of different flowers behind all the colours in these photos.  Dominant it seems are the False Sunflowers, a hardy flower which spreads readily, and is going to get weeded out a little before next year!

The Coneflowers also spread, growing in new locations, while the original patches get larger.

And there are 3 or 4 dozen varieties of daylilies altogether, mostly blooming through July into mid or late August.  I like the bright ones! 

And that's our garden in mid-summer.

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Bognor Marsh Botany

I was surprised to find several plants new to me at Bognor Marsh, plants which I had to look up, either to remember or to figure out.  Maybe I'm getting forgetful in my old age, but I do have quite a collection of field guides from my years teaching field studies at university, so I enjoyed making use of them.  Here's a report on some of the species I found; sorry, but this post is pretty long.  Any botanists among my readers, please feel free to correct me!

I did recognize this  one of course, the dreaded Purple Loosestrife, an invasive species that has caused a lot of trouble in wetlands.  There were two quite thick patches of it (below), but surprisingly it didn't seem to have invaded the main marsh, and we saw little of it beyond the first 50 yards.

Then one of the interpretive panels explained that this site had been used in research based at the University of Guelph (where I used to teach), when a species of bugs was released to keep this pretty pest under control.  I hope it's working.

There were large patches of what I call bulrushes, correctly the Common Cattail.

I did have to check this aquatic species though, which I should have remembered.  It's Arrowhead, named after the shape of its leaf.

This is one of two shrubs I checked.  I thought at the time it looks an awful lot like a Spiraea bush, and it turned out to be Meadowsweet, Spiraea alba.

This one I'm still not sure of.  The seed pods look like rose hips, and the leaves look like a rose too, but it had no thorns.  Then I found Smooth Rose in the shrub book, so I think that's what it must be.  Anyone know?

Note, 2 days later - I'm assured that this is NOT Smooth Rose, but haven't figured out what it is; may have to just wait til next year and go back when it's in flower.

I just glanced at several of these plants as I passed, thinking they were Joe-Pye Weed, which is plentiful here and just coming into bloom.  But when I looked closely I began to wonder, and realized the leaf pattern wasn't right.

This one is Joe-Pye Weed, not quite in bloom yet, and you can see that the leaves come out in a unique whorl of five leaves around the stem.

So I took a closer look and decided this was Swamp Milkweed, the first time I've knowingly identified it, though I suspect I've just missed it frequently before.  A very pretty colour.

I didn't recognize these seeds at all, but when I looked up the leaf I realized it was Canada Anemone.

I should have remembered this one, which is Boneset, not quite in flower yet.

Once I looked it up, the leaves which meet and merge at the stem give it away.

This is a new one for me, and I stopped immediately when I saw it, because I've been wondering if there is any Poison Hemlock around here.  But checking the field guide, this is Water Hemlock, with a flower like a somewhat finer and more open Queen Anne's Lace bloom.

But the leaf clearly marks this species in comparison to other similar species in the area.

Finally, I snapped a quick not very good picture of this one as we walked out the trail.  Looked like a very thin and wispy White Sweet Clover, but with tiny flowers.  The only species I can find that matches it is White Vervain, which is new to me.

And there were a number of Sedge species, but I'm not going to even pretend I can identify these!  I can tell sedges (always have a triangular base), from rushes (always round in cross-section), and grasses (always have joints, which the other two don't), but that's as far as I get.  Any sedge experts out there?

This is the sort of habitat where all these were found, the sedge and shrubby meadow wetland habitat along the shore of the actual open water.  It's been awhile since I had this fun doing a bit of botany, and I enjoyed it.

Bognor Marsh Exploration

On Tuesday last, our Photography Group went on a walk to explore Bognor Marsh.  A large conservation area southeast of Owen Sound, the marsh is surrounded by a loop of the Bruce Trail, but also has an interpretive boardwalk along the south side.  That was our target, and it turned out to be very interesting.

It's quite a large marsh, with some open water, and a lot of wetland habitat full of various rushes around the edge.  The boardwalk (in the distance) was in good shape, and yes, that's Purple Loosestrife, though it certainly hadn't invaded widely in the marsh.

The water level is controlled by a small dam and berm, which probably makes for better waterfowl habitat.

There were lots of frogs, this Green Frog just sat on a lily pad while we all took photos.

And one Bullhead Lily conveniently grew beside the boardwalk so we could get a good look at the actual flower.

At the end of the boardwalk was a viewing tower, so you could get a view over the larger part of the marsh in the distance.  Lots of great wetland habitat.

I had been watching for reflections, and found these shots of the smaller rushes in the open water were the most interesting to me.

And to top it all off, as we were turning to leave the far end of the boardwalk, in came a pair of Sandhill Cranes, bugling their very prehistoric sounding calls.  They're not very common around here, so it was a suitable highlight, even if the picture is terrible!  Tomorrow, more on the botany; there were several plants I had to look up once I got home.

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