Order Missouri Native Plants

George O. White Nursery ordering form available online. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Order Missouri Native Plants

September 1, 2019 was the opening of the George O. White Nursery 2020 ordering window through April 15, 2020 and I have my order, and check, in the mail. Yes, that may just be a new record, even for me!

You don’t have to be so quick, I just have my heart set on getting a nice supply of native Beauty Berry bushes. I was given one earlier this year and I was astounded at how beautiful it is, photos don’t do it justice. The berries are also excellent wildlife food, which may keep my wildlife menagerie happy.

I ordered some seedlings last year as well; witch hazel, button bush, elderberries and rose mallow, all excellent pollinator plants. I wanted some serviceberries, a lovely spring tree but those were sold out. They are already sold out this year as well.

Once the seedlings arrived, I potted them in new soil and kept them moist for most of the growing season. The seedlings are now big enough to fend for themselves in the garden.

Some of the plant starts from earlier this spring, ready for transplanting. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

You can also plant the seedlings directly into soil once you get them next spring. I prefer to give them a growing season in pots so that I can more easily find them later.Placing them in pots also helps their roots get established so that the transplanting is more successful.

Here is one example of witch hazel seedlings. On the left the original seedling, on the right the witch hazel established and ready to be transplanted.

On left, one of the spring starts. On right, witch hazel with established roots. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Not all seedlings make it but I have a good 90% success with the ones I have received. They are shipped bare rooted so it’s good to be prepared for when they are expected to arrive.

In the case of these seedlings, I had the pots filled with new potting soil waiting for the seedlings. Here is a rose mallow start, on the left:

This native rose mallow started out as the tiny stick on the left. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The native rose mallow start sprung off that seedling and is now almost 5 feet tall, more than ready to be transplanted into the garden.

Rose mallow is a cousin to the hibiscus. The Missouri native ones are white with a burgundy center. What I like about rose mallow, also a cousin to what people call Rose of Sharon, is that it blooms from July to frost, providing nectar and pollen to my bees during the August dearth.

That same native rose mallow is now almost 5 feet tall, ready to move into the garden. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Once you place your order online, you will get an email confirming your order. You have 30 days from when the order was placed to pay. After the 30 days if you don’t pay the seedlings are made available to the next person who placed an order.

Last year, I ordered all items marked “sold out'“ online but ended up getting them all when previous orders were not finalized with payment.

When you order, you can designate what week of the month you want your seedlings shipped. I usually select mid-April because the weather tends to be more cooperative then.

If you live in Missouri, shipping to your Missouri address is free.

This is an excellent place to get yourselves native tree and shrub stock. Ten seedlings are $8.95; 25 seedlings are $10.95.

If you wait until December 1 or later, you can call 800-392-3111 for a recorded message concerning possible shipping delays and the kinds of trees still available.

This is my latest addition to my garden, Missouri’s native Beauty Berry, which provides wildlife winter food. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

What trees and shrubs do you plan to order?

Charlotte

Mystery Solved

The flower bed island at the head of my driveway where the mystery plant was growing. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Mystery Solved

For a number of years, the small flower bed at the top of my driveway has had a mystery plant growing in it.

At first I just cut it down to a couple of feet off the ground so that I could see my street sign number. The plants didn’t grow very tall, and I didn’t see them growing in other garden spots.

As I added mulch and the flower bed developed better soil, the mystery plants started to get taller.

This year, I decided to let everything grow to its full potential so that I could identify what they were, including the mystery plant in the front island.

After reaching a good 7-feet tall, I started to see flower buds branching off the top. Okay, so I had to carefully bend the plant down to see the buds but they were definitely there.

Here is the plant almost 6 feet tall with flower buds. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Sawttooth Sunflower

As soon as I saw the yellow flowers, I was able to identify the mystery plant: sawtooth sunflower Helianthus grosseserratus, a member of the daisy family, one of the six large plant families that provide bees and other pollinators like butterflies food throughout the US Midwest growing season.

The Latin name grosseserratus gives a hint to this plant’s description of being a giant herb. The ones on the lower end of this flower bed are growing taller than the ones on the shorter, or left side.

Because they can grow up to 16-feet tall, they do get knocked over by rain storms.

The tall plant stalks are now all blooming. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

According to Missouri Department of Conservation, sawtooth sunflowers sometimes grow in dense colonies, other times as single specimens.

Lower stems are often hairless, reddish, sometimes with a white waxy coating. Flower heads are all yellow to 3½ inches across, with 10–25 fairly wide ray florets. Blooms July through October, providing pollinators with food during Missouri’s hot August dearth.

The leaves are about 10 inches long and 2½ inches wide, coarsely toothed.

Interestingly enough, sunflowers readily hybridize with each other, which can make identification difficult. Not counting hybrids, there are 16 species of Helianthus recorded for Missouri. This species is perhaps best identified by its leaves, which are mostly alternate, very narrow, folded lengthwise along the mid vein, with flat (uncurled) leaf margins, and yellow disk florets.

I have seen similar-looking yellow flowers but the leaves were different.

Great Pollinator Plant

The Illinois wildflowers website notes “the most common visitors to the flowers are bees, especially long-tongued species. Among these are honeybees, bumblebees, Cuckoo bees (Epeolus spp., Triepeolus spp.), digger bees (Melissodes spp.), and leaf-cutting bees (Megachile spp.).

Other insect visitors include Syrphid flies, bee flies, butterflies, moths, and beetles. Both nectar and pollen are available as floral rewards. Other insects feed on the foliage, plant juices, pith of stems, developing seeds, etc., of sunflowers. These insect feeders include caterpillars of the butterflies Chlosyne nycteis (Silvery Checkerspot) and Chlosyne gorgone (Gorgone Checkerspot), stem-boring caterpillars of Papaipema necopina (Sunflower Borer Moth) and Papaipema rigida (Rigid Sunflower Borer Moth), seed-eating caterpillars of the moths Homoeosoma electella (Sunflower Moth) and Stibadium spumosum (Frothy Moth), foliage-eating caterpillars of Grammia arge (Arge Tiger Moth) and Phragmatobia fuliginosa (Ruby Tiger Moth), and other moths.”

Now that I know what they are, they get to stay. I will move the street sign. After all, who wouldn’t want to claim to be growing a giant herb in their garden that provides for so many pollinators!

Charlotte

Missouri's Daylily Season

Tiny grasshopper visits one of my orange daylilies. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Missouri’s Daylily Season

It’s still amazing to me when I think about our European ancestors. They packed up only a few belongings to travel the Atlantic to make a new home in North America, carrying with them dandelions and Hemerocallis fulva, what we today call Missouri’s Orange daylilies. Actually some in Missouri call these “ditch lilies” because that’s where they can sometimes be found but in general, they are often considered a nuisance or a “weed.”

Not to our European ancestors. They depended on these daylilies for food and on the dandelions for medicine.

As someone who “discovered” these lovely perennials many decades ago, I find them handy in my Missouri hillside garden for a number of reasons.

First, since I garden on an acre where my neighbors told me “nothing would grow,” I use Missouri’s orange daylilies to help me hold in soil. Missouri’s orange daylilies will grow in almost any condition and soil including gravel and clay. They also nicely will help hold in soil, not so easy when one is gardening on land that has an incline.

One of my limestone hillsides covered in Missouri’s orange daylilies.(Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

In addition to holding in soil, I use Missouri’s orange daylilies to help mark paths since once the blooming period is over, the greenery helps to cover plants that may die back behind them.

Missouri Orange Daylilies on the way to one of my apiaries. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Missouri’s orange daylilies are quite versatile, they will grow well in both sun and dapled shade, like this flower bed with my “cats” in the garden.

My garden “cats” sitting in the middle of Missouri orange daylilies. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Last but not least, Missouri’s orange daylilies are entirely edible. These Missouri native wildflowers are still grown in European kitchen gardens precisely because the plants are edible. The newly-growin stalks are called “poor man’s asparagus” and the flower buds are delicious in salads.

Since I don’t use chemicals in my Missouri hillside garden, I can pick orange daylilies with confidence but I would not try that on a batch of orange daylilies from the side of a road - or a ditch.

Orange daylilies line one of my paths down the hill. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Missouri’s orange daylilies may not be the best cut flowers because the flowers only last a day. If you pick some with buds, the buds will open on the second and third days so you can mix them with other fill in flowers for a bouquet.

I frankly enjoy a cut bouquet of just orange daylilies. I pick off the dead flowers every day and watch the buds unfold.

If you look closely, these often overlooked Missouri wildflowers are actually quite lovely.

A close up of Missouri’s orange daylilies. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Add a few to your garden and see for yourself!

Charlotte

Darling Daylilies

Originally from China, Missouri's ditch lilies are the basis for all hybrid daylilies on the market today. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Darling Daylilies

We don’t appreciate them as much as European settlers, who among their few possessions made room for Hemerocallis fulva, today’s common orange daylily, when they first arrived in North America. How did we forget how valuable these plants used to be?

When I worked for several weeks in Southampton for the 50th Anniversary of D-Day, several of our English counterparts talked about their tiny gardens. One of the staple plants they continue to grow in their kitchen gardens is daylilies because all parts of the plant are edible.

I didn’t know that when I first admired the beautiful orange blooms. I did know they were almost impossible to kill and grow in almost all conditions. When my husband at the time and I had a house built, I used them to hold soil. Some areas today still have the descendants of those first plants, so thick now I need to thin them out if I am going to see flowers in that part of the garden again.

I have since learned why daylilies are so darling, they are delicious. Jan Phillips in her book "Wild Edibles of Missouri" calls orange daylilies "another one of mother nature's grocery stores." Phillips confirms the whole plant is edible, from the young flower stalks in spring that taste like asparagus to the tiny, white root bulbs reminiscent of radishes.

The steamed stalks are referred to as the poor man’s asparagus, something I once again forgot to try this year when the stems were young enough.

Don Kurz in his field guide to “Ozark Wildflowers” said these plants have been “eaten in salads, in fritters, as a cooked vegetable and as a seasoning. In China, a root tea is used as a diuretic.”

There is also a cautionary note. “Recent Chinese reports warn that the roots and young leaf shoots are considered potentially toxic and can accumulate in the body and adversely impact the eyes, even causing blindness in some cases. Their studies also warn that the roots contain a carcinogen.”

Daylily buds, left, and the open flowers are delicious additions to salads. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

I like the fresh flower buds. They are a nice addition to a salad or served on their own as a side dish. They taste like green beans with a hint of onion and brighten up any dish when you add an open flower.

Another way to enjoy the buds is to steam them. It only takes a couple of minutes to make the buds wilt so keep a close eye on them so they are not overcooked.

One of the more popular recipes is to fry the buds. If you want to try, use a flour dip in an egg wash in hot oil for only a minute or so, they cook quickly.

If you are going to eat daylilies, make sure you are picking them from a chemical-free area. Wash in cool water, then allow to dry. I keep them on their stems in a flower vase with water until I use them.

You don’t have to eat them to enjoy them, they are beautiful just as they are. I like them on this handmade wildflowers quilt, too!

Charlotte

Missouri Dayflowers

One of Missouri's true blue wildflowers, dayflower.

Missouri's Dayflower

It's almost unavailable any more, true blue garden flowers. So it's with a little consternation that I watch a friend mow down a lovely patch of one of Missouri's true blue wildflowers, the dayflower commelina communis. As you can guess from the plant's name, the one-inch blue flowers last only a day. 

A cousin of the fleshy-stemmed spiderwort, dayflowers grow on more narrow fleshy stems with oval leaves, preferring shade to full sun.

Another lovely Missouri wildflower and cousin to Missouri dayflowers, spiderwort.

When I see the two pictures close together, it's easier to see the family connection.

One of the advantages of having dayflowers around is that you can use them in bald spots. Once they establish themselves, they can form a nice edge.

If you don't like where they settle, not a problem. The roots are on the surface, making the plants easily to pull up and move.

Dayflowers fill in a corner at Bluebird Gardens.

Dayflowers will fill in an empty garden spot quickly, bringing both green depth and a taste of blue wherever they grow. Leave them if they aren't disturbing anything; it's an empty garden spot because nothing else will grow there. 

They remind me of little blue bees with yellow eyes but then I tend to see bees in everything  around me.

Charlotte