Late Summer Meadows

The wildflowers continue to share their beauty, despite lack of rain, and hotter than normal days.
It's been a HOT summer, period.
And so, as we transition into the gentler days of autumn I share with you the last few flowers of summer........

Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium purpureum, is an amazing plant that is an herb, a wildflower, a butterfly plant and an ornamental for the flower bed.
It obtained its name after a Native American herbalist, named Joe-Pye, cured fevers using the Eupatorium plant.

Though we tend to think of it as a wildflower in the U.S., it's long been an ornamental plant in England where our cottage gardens are so popular.

I enjoy gathering the flowers, stems and all, to hang from the rafters of my potting shed. Surprisingly enough they stay vividly colored until late Winter.

The Wild Yarrow, Achillea Millefolium, also known as Milfoil, Soldiers woundwort, Nose Bleed Weed, Sanguinary, and Devil’s Nettle is a very useful medicinal herb.
Yarrow has also been used as a food, and was very popular as a vegetable in the seventeenth century.

The younger leaves are said to be a pleasant leaf vegetable when cooked as spinach, or in a soup.

Yarrow is sweet with a slight bitter taste. The leaves can also be dried and used as a herb in cooking.

Solidago, commonly called goldenrods, are herbaceous perennial species found in the meadows and pastures, along roads, ditches and waste areas in North America.

Parts of some goldenrods can be edible when cooked, they can also be used for decoration and making tea.
Goldenrods are, in some places, held as a sign of good luck or good fortune.

They are considered weeds by many in North America but they are prized as garden plants in Europe.

Queen Anne's Lace, also called " Wild Carrot" is a common plant in dry fields, ditches and open area. It was first introduced from Europe, and the carrots that we eat today were once cultivated from this plant.

The plant blooms from May to October, and is a biennial plant, which means it lives for two years.

It will spend the first year growing bigger, and then bloom the second year.