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| PURPLE MEADOW RUE FLOWER PANICLE... |
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| PINNATELY COMPOUND LEAVES |
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| COREOPSIS IN FIELDS ALONG HWY. J |
I am trying to keep ahead of the yard and garden work but it is relentless this year. I did a lot of tree and shrub pruning yesterday and there is still more to do, as woody plants have grown by veritable leaps and bounds this year. Our gardens would all be shade gardens now without vigorous pruning of overarching branches and leaves, and the time is coming when I will have to reluctantly remove some trees. Be careful how many trees you plant, what types, and where you plant them.
The fields along Hwy. J in the orchard country remain very colorful and well worth a drive-through. The lupines are virtually done blooming and are setting seed, but the tickseed, Coreopsis lanceolata, are even more colorful en mas. The strawberries have been bearing fruit for the last ten days or so and are absolutely delicious this year. Picked berries are $4.50 a quart at Rocky Acres on Hwy. J, or take the kids and pick your own (picking strawberries is stoop labor, and well worth paying the price to have them picked as far as I am concerned, and provides some extra income for those willing and able to bend over).
Every year a purple meadow-rue, Thalictrum dasycarpum, in the crow-foot, AKA buttercup, family (Ranunculaceae) blooms in the front garden. It is a little late this year. The species can also have white flowers, which I think I see blooming along the roadside in wet locations now, and I will take some photos of them as well.
The species grows in wet meadows, swamps and thickets in the upper-Midwest. I don't know where this plant in the front garden came from, I don't remember plating it. There are about a dozen species of meadow-rue in North America.
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