The Pretender...

And other flowering mysteries...

Does anyone know what this well tended, cultivated weed is? Last year I salvaged some very old seed from a "Sweet Annie" dried flower bundle. I carefully prepared a flower pot and tamped the seed in. Lo and behold in a few weeks this tiny feathery green plant came up! It worked! The seed was still viable. All summer I babied that thing along, and even convinced myself that the leaves when lightly crushed smell like Sweet Annie (it has a very pungent aroma). When winter came I made sure it was in a protected area and got occasional waterings if it was too dry. Lo and behold again, it survived the winter! I had Sweet Annie and this year it would produce seed and soon my fields would be white with Sweet Annie (sorry, got a little carried away there).

Then it put this big white flowery seed head on, and no matter how I tried to convince myself, it definitely didn't smell like Sweet Annie anymore. Nope. And strangely enough there seemed to be the same plant growing...wild.. in abundance in the fields. I can only assume it is a weed, probably chigger weed or something attractive like that. A well tended chigger weed.

Then there is this little pink flower that has emerged this Spring. I think it's from some wild flower seed I planted (far far away from the "Sweet Annie" impostor). It too has rather feathery leaves, and is a bit odd looking, but the blooms are very lovely. You can see the foliage of the plant in the bottom right hand of the photo. Any recognition on this one?

Lastly is a this flowering tree. I did find out what it is called though, after all these years. It is a Goldenrain Tree. It's quite a unique tree, with these flowing yellow blossoms and the seed pods that form in the fall. The seed pods look like tiny Japanese lanterns.

I planted this tree many years ago, when I used to get trees every year from the National Arbor Day Foundation. I never quite knew what I would get, but I grimly planted tree after tree. Most of them died. Those were the days when my yard had no trees and it was beastly hot in the house every summer. The days before my yard suddenly became a jungle of trees. I planted Redbuds and Dogwoods, a Red Maple, River Birch, Apples, and Cherries and this unknown tree. I'm sure there were more that I planted, that lived briefly and died. The Redbuds lived and thrived and made more Redbud children. The Red Maple is glorious in the fall and the River Birch makes an interesting addition to the yard (although it consistently and annoyingly drops small dead limbs). However the trees that grew the fastest and have been the hardiest have been the 'volunteers'--the Catalpas, Silver Maples, Elms, Hackberry and Mulberrys.

In the back where the Goldenrain is, it is overshadowed by a Silver Maple (that I did not plant), but gamely hangs on and grows, even if at a slight angle. Further in back of the house, in the sheep pasture, there are many Silver Populars. They are lovely trees but very invasive. However the sheep have eliminated that problem by grazing down all the new seedlings every year.


Everywhere I look right now there blooms and blossoms. I'll feature the Catalpas in another post, as they are glorious this year.