Reflections on Wildflowers 1

When I looked forward to retirement, I thought about identifying the wildflowers around my home. I pictured myself, guidebook in hand, stooping low over tiny petals and learning the names of the plants surrounding me. Now that I am retired and have honored my vow, I am ready to report that naming wildflowers has been even more fun than I imagined it would be!

Common Spring Beauty, Photograph by Wild Flower Preservation Society

In Norman Taylor’s Wild Flower Gardening (D. Van Nostrand, 1955)

In May, I found Spring Beauty around the trunks of two of my oldest and largest trees. I had noted the white blossoms with touches of pink when I first moved to the property over a dozen years ago, and I had always avoided mowing the areas where the flowers bloomed. Spring Beauty is aptly named. I am embarrassed to admit that, during the years when I was working, I felt too rushed to take the time to identify the small blossoms that I so admired.

In the midst of the grass in the broad yards fronting the barn, the tiniest spikes of white flowers opened above a plant creeping outward through the grass. I found that Common Speedwell has faintly bluish stripes embroidering the petals. It purportedly has astringent and diuretic properties. Hmmm. I doubt that I will sample the plant to see.

I almost overlooked Shepherd’s Purse, which grew in my beds of iris. Its many heart-shaped mittens waved at me. Oddly enough, when I knew its name, I no longer considered it a weed. I left it where it was with as much right to be a flower as the iris that I had planted.

The stylish Garlic Mustard put forth white blossoms on my hill of walnut trees and along my creek. Since 1868, the plant has spread westward from New York.

Reminiscent of the Queen Anne’s Lace that would appear much later in the season, Sweet Cicely ornamented the shady bowers at creek’s edge.

Ground Ivy (also known as Creeping Charlie) bloomed everywhere. Its violet-blue flowers painted large sections of my yard.

By identifying the wildflowers around my house, I began to live more consciously than before. I felt a kinship to the plants. While I recognized that their task is to survive, their blooms appealed to my artistic sense. They completed pictures delighting the eye with their harmony. The changing display of blossoms satisfied me as correct for spring and for summer as separate seasons, each with its own aesthetic expression in the part of the world where I am fortunate to reside. I realized that I, too, am living through seasons—that I, too, express myself differently in summer than in spring, in autumn than in summer. Every season settles into its own responsibilities and pleasures.