Fairy Crown #24 – Fall Asters & Showy Goldenrod for Thanksgiving

My 24th fairy crown is a celebration of early autumn in my meadows on Lake Muskoka. I have purposefully worked to create late season habitat for all the bumble bees that enjoy my summer flowers, primarily with the two native plants I’m wearing. The purple is New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae); the yellow is showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa).  Also tucked in are a few sprigs of the winterberry shrubs (Ilex verticillata) that grow naturally along the lake’s rocky shore.

I had some fun with this crown when I sat on the bench on my hillside above the lake. In late September and early October, the bumble bees and assorted other bees and wasps are almost frantically active, sensing, no doubt, that the days are getting cooler and their time is coming to an end.  You can see a bumble bee enjoying the crown flowers after I took it off my head.

But I also experienced the useful life of a pollinator plant when I sat on the bench wearing my crown and let the bees come to me. Here’s a little video I made.

Most recent findings for showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa) indicate that the species is native in Ontario to two regions, the “Great Lakes Plains” population is on Walpole Island First Nation at the mouth of the St. Clair River on Lake St. Clair; the other “Boreal” population is near Kenora in northwest Ontario.  These distant (1200 km) ecological areas present different morphologies for the species, possibly indicating different varieties. In the U.S., the Department of Natural Resources is reportedly elevating the three known S. speciosa varieties to species rank; at present they are S. speciosa var. speciosa, S. speciosa var. rigidiscula and S. speciosa var. jejunifolia

My plants were seed-sown from a Minnesota source more than 15 years ago and are very hardy; while spreading somewhat aggressively, they do not colonize via rhizomes like Canada goldenrod so are fairly easy to pull out if they become too happy.   I have praised this plant in my blog before – see Sparing the ‘Rod, Spoiling the Bees.

Most important for me is their late flowering season and their large inflorescence, a boon for the butterflies…

…. and, especially, my bumble bees after most of the other meadow perennials have gone to seed.

Two native aster species flower in succession in early autumn. Below is smooth aster (Symphyotrichum laeve) flowering alongside showy goldenrod in my west meadow.  It’s a little  willowy and fragile-looking compared to….

….. New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) with showy goldenrod, Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) and big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) in the west meadow.  That’s the seedhead of Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) at lower right.

New England aster has a common rich-purple form, shown below being foraged by a tri-coloured bumble bee (Bombus ternarius).

It also has a distinct mauve-pink form, below, the one below featuring the common Eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens).   

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is widespread in damp and boggy settings in Muskoka. It grows at the shore of the cottage and the fruits last into winter, until they’re eaten by hungry birds.

I made a second video for this time at the cottage, featuring some of the plants above:

By early October, the leaves of the red maples (Acer rubrum), so plentiful in Muskoka, have started transforming to shades of orange and red – and some yellow.  This is one on our property which I selected to ‘keep’ (since I could have hundreds, given the number of seedlings that arise.)

It is visible framed through a cottage window beyond my “nature lamp”.

This weekend, of course, is Thanksgiving in Canada. It more accurately represents our harvest time in our northern latitude than the late November date south of the border. And Thanksgiving means PIES! My grandchildren take an active role in pie-making, including cutting slices for the apple pie….

….. and making sour cream cobwebs on the pumpkin pie.

The table is set for Thanksgiving dinner, usually with extended family from our bay…

…. and a centrepiece bouquet with flowers cut from the meadows.  A few Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ and Rudbeckia subtomentosa are usually still in bloom to add to the goldenrod and asters.

Turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, green beans and sweet potatoes, with the relatives sharing vegetable offerings at our casual buffet.

Those pies appear for dessert, and though you’re really much too full… somehow “a tiny slice of each” is a familiar refrain.

The next day sometimes features turkey noodle soup for the freezer. Then it’s out for an autumn hike …..

…. through the forest behind our cottages.

There are many diversions for the grandkids….

…. and lots of eye-catching mushrooms to photograph. Sadly, this is a downed American beech tree (Fagus grandifolia), a species currently under attack from beech bark disease.

It’s important to know the exact species of mushroom before gathering for cooking. You would not want to eat Amanita muscaria var. guessowii or American yellow fly agaric, for example, since it is toxic (and dangerously psychoactive, though not a psilocybin ‘magic mushroom’).

I was fascinated with the pale purple colour of this wood blewit (Clitocybe nuda) growing under white pines and paper birches on our shore – though mushrooms can be any colour.

But it is the spectacular colours of the autumn canopy of our northern mixed forests that thrills us – the visual reward before our long, white winter on the Muskoka section of the Precambrian Shield.

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This fairy crown is the 24th in a long line of Tinker Bell crowns. Here are links to the previous ones.

#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan
#17- Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake
#18- Russian Sage & Blazing Stars
#19-My Fruitful Life
#20-Cup Plant, Joe Pye & Ironweed
#21-Helianthus & Hummingbirds#22-Grasses, Asters & Goldenrod
#23-Sedums, Pass-Along Plants & Fruit for the Birds

Fairy Crown #17 – Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake

This is truly my favourite time of year in the meadows at our cottage on Lake Muskoka. Why?  Because the flower variety is at peak and the bees are at their most plentiful and buzzy. So my 17th fairy crown for August 5th celebrates the pollinator favourites here, including the champion, pink-flowered wild beebalm or bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), as well as yellow false oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides), biennial blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta), grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) with its dark cones, mauve hoary vervain (Verbena stricta), oregano (Origanum vulgare) and a few of my weedy Queen Anne’s lace flowers (Dauca carota).  

I call my wild places on either side of the cottage ‘Monarda Meadows’ because wild beebalm (M. fistulosa) is the principal perennial there and in all the beds and wild places around our house, where it grows as a companion to Heliopsis helianthoides, below.

There’s a reason wild beebalm is called that; it’s a literal balm for the bees, specifically bumble bees whose tongues can easily probe the florets! 

Another frequent visitor to wild beebalm flowers is the clearwing hummingbird moth (Hemaris thysbe).

False oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides) is one of the most aggressive natives I grow. I’m happy to leave it where it lands, but it often sulks in very sandy, sunny spots when summers are hot and dry.  It’s much better in the rich soil at the bottom of my west meadow, and I try to ignore all the red aphids that line the stems in certain summers.

But heliopsis also attracts its share of native bees, including tiny Augochlora pura, below.

Unlike the blackeyed susan I wrote about in my last blog, R. fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’, the ones I have at the lake are all the drought-tolerant native Rudbeckia hirta, below, with a long-horned Melissodes bee.  Biennials, they have seeded themselves around generously since 2003, when I first sowed masses of seed (along with red fescue grass) on the bare soil of the meadows surrounding our new house.

Sometimes they manage to arrange themselves very fetchingly, as with the perfumed Orienpet lily ‘Conca d’Or’, below.

Other times, they hang with the other tough native in my crown, hoary vervain (Verbena stricta).  Both are happy in the driest places on our property where they flower for an exceedingly long time….

…… as you can see from this impromptu bouquet handful featuring the vervain with earlier bloomers, coreopsis, butterfly milkweed and oxeye daisy.

Bumble bees love Verbena stricta.

The other yellow daisy in flower now — hiding at the top of my fairy crown — is grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), also a favourite of bumble bees and small native bees in the meadows.  A vigorous self-seeder, it nevertheless does not always land in soil that is moisture-retentive enough for its needs; in that case, like heliopsis above, it wilts badly. But I love its tall stems bending like willows in the breeze.

Also in my fairy crown is a familiar hardy herb that fell from a pot on my deck long ago and found a happy spot in the garden bed below:  Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare var. hirtum).  

Its tiny flowers are also favoured by small pollinators.

The last component of my midsummer fairy crown is the common umbellifer Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota).  As much as we think of this as an unwanted invasive weed in North America, it was reassuring to see a native potter wasp, Ancistrocerus, making use of its small flowers.

As always, my fairy crown has a lovely second act as a bouquet.

Finally, I made a 2-minute musical video that celebrates these plants that form such an important ecological chapter in my summer on Lake Muskoka.

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Are you new to my fairy crowns?  Here are the links to my previous 15 blogs:
#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan

Pollinators & Essential Services

I’ve been meaning to write this blog for years, but it took a global pandemic – and the fact that this is National Pollinator Week – to spur me into action. Because in a pandemic we need essential workers, and on this planet there are no workers more essential than pollinators. Think of it: in all flowering plants not pollinated by wind (grasses and many trees are wind pollinated), bees, buterflies, moths, birds, beetles, ants and other insects are responsible for transferring pollen from a flower’s male anthers to the receptive female stigma, ensuring fertilization of the ovum, the creation of fruit and later the ultimate dissemination of seed. Without pollinators, the world as we know it would be as it was more than 135 million years ago: boring. No need for colour, since grasses and birches and pines don’t need to wear flashy hues to have the wind disperse the pollen the produce. No need for flower fragrance, since the wind doesn’t need to be lured to flowers like moths to a nocturnal species.  And wind pollination is so wasteful! Look at how many male white pine cones fall to the ground in the evolutionary effort to pollinate the receptive female cones. (This is my dock on Lake Muskoka north of Toronto, by the way).

No, insect pollination was a giant step forward, beginning with plants that looked vaguely like modern magnolias, likely fertilized by beetles. (I couldn’t find any beetles so substituted honey bees on Magnolia grandiflora, below).

Bees evolved initially from wasps. The earliest honey bee ancestors emerged in Asia roughly 120 million years ago. Bumble bees arrived on the scene between 30 and 40 million years ago.  Modern honey bees and bumble bees, like those below on globe thistle, are the descendants of an ancient lineage of insect pollinators

As gardeners, we sometimes forget that there was a time when the natural world did not revolve around us. It got along just fine without Homo sapiens. In fact, there are quite a few people who think earth fared much better without humans, but then consciousness and evolution have given us the ability to perceive our achievements and actions with feelings of pride tempered by a growing sense of guilt. Climate change, conservation, overpopulation – they are all serious issues today, but that’s not what I’m focusing on here. Instead, I’d like to write a little love letter to the workers in earth’s most essential essential service: pollinators.  Goodness knows I’ve spent enough time courting them over the past three decades and more.  Here’s one of my Toronto Sun columns from 1997.

And here’s a story I proposed and wrote on urban beekeeping for the now-shuttered Organic Gardening magazine in 2012.

Researching nectar- or pollen-rich flowers for beekeepers for that story and finding very little in current literature launched a multi-year focus on honey bees and their favourite plants. Out of it came a quite spectacular poster……

….. and the occasional magazine cover.

In time, I amassed such a large inventory of honey bee imagery (like the forget-me-not, below) that I decided to create an online photo library devoted just to them.  If you’d like to have a browse, it is located here.

I have written stories about beekeepers, including my friend Tom Morrisey in Orillia, Ontario, below. This was my blog on his late summer honey harvest at Lavender Hill Farm.

My beekeeping pal Janet Wilson out in British Columbia drove me to her hives in a blackberry thicket on a farm, and let me photograph her checking on the hives.

When I was on safari at Kicheche Camp in Laikipia, Kenya in 2016, I loved spending time with the camp’s beekeeper William Wanyika, and learning how he does his work.

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At Toronto Botanical Garden, I photographed the beehives and the student beekeepers….

….. and later that year I returned to photograph the honey harvest.

I enjoyed paying attention to nectar guides, the markings that plants have evolved to show pollinators exactly where to look for nectar and pollen. The European horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), below, is an excellent example. Flowers with fresh nectar exhibit a yellow blotch; as the markings darken from orange to red, the bee knows that the flowers are old and no longer yielding nectar.

But as much as I appreciate the work that honey bees do, I have always understood that in North America, European honey bees (Apis mellifera) are very much domestic agricultural animals. They may be feral in places warm enough for them to overwinter, but in much of the continent they must be “kept”. Wild bees, or native bees, on the other hand, have co-evolved with our North American flora. Many of them are adaptable to a number of different plant species; they’re called “generalists”. Here is a montage I made of native North American bees and butterflies on native North American plants.

Other bees are “specialists”, requiring the nectar or pollen from one, or just a few, types of plants.  The North American squash bee (Peponapis pruinosa) is one of those, spending its short life acquiring food from the flowers of native squash plants, like the one below.

On vacation in Arizona, I was interested in the specialist native Diadasia australis bees who forage solely on opuntia cacti, like this Engelmann’s prickly-pear (Opuntia engelmanii).

At home, I have come to know my local native vernal or spring bees, like the polyester bee (Colletes inaequalis), shown below on early-flowering willow (Salix).

But I’ve been bemused in the past few weeks by native bees paying no attention whatsoever to my native plants and instead finding their sources of carbohydrates and protein in the nectar and pollen of non-native plants, such as the bicoloured sweat bee Agapostemon virescens working the wine-red flowers of European knautia (Knautia macedonica) in my garden, below….

… and a plethora of native pollinators, including the Eastern tiger swallowtail, avidly foraging on my neighbour’s Chinese beauty bush, Kolkwitzia amabilis, below.  

But some plants don’t need pollinators. While I was videotaping the June plants above, the birds were squabbling noisily over the first ripening serviceberries (Amelanchier sp.) nearby. (I photographed the one below on the High Line one June.) I was curious that in all my years observing my serviceberries and their clouds of tiny blossoms, I haven’t seen any pollinators attending the plants. How could I have such an abundance of early summer fruit? Scientists have shown that several species of Amelanchier have evolved “apomixis”, bypassing sexual reproduction, meiosis and cell division entirely – thus no need for insect fertilization. In apomicts, the ovum in the flower divides parthenogenically.

I adore bumble bees (Bombus species), and I’ve spent years trying to identify the ones I see in my gardens and even the species I encounter during my travels. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I have a large photo inventory of bumble bees online. Below is my favourite of all, the brown-belted bumble bee (Bombus griseocollis). Isn’t that the perfect name?

And I do have a soft spot for Toronto’s (un)official bee mascot, the bicoloured agapostemon (A. virescens), shown here foraging on purple coneflower in my garden.

Though many people dislike them for their wood-boring trait, particularly if it happens to their pergolas or sundecks, I love watching carpenter bees (Xylocopa virginica) using that strong tongue to bore into the corollas of certain flowers, like the Nicotiana mutabilis, below. Biologists call that “nectar robbery”, i.e. the bee is effectively bypassing the evolutionary pact between bee and pollinator to gain the reward without transferring pollen from one flower to another.

At the Toronto Botanical Garden, where I’ve contributed my photography as seasonal galleries,  I spent a few seasons tracking pollinators on the plants, and made a musical video to celebrate them.

My city garden in Toronto was designed as a pollinator garden, too. It contains both native and non-native plants. I’ve shown this video a few times in my blog, but here it is again throughout four seasons.

And at my cottage on Lake Muskoka, I look upon almost every plant in my meadows, garden beds and planters as a chance to invite bumble bees, solitary bees and hummingbirds to sup on the mostly native plants I provide for them. (Please note that the vernonia should be V. noveboracensis).

So to celebrate National Pollinator Week, I would like to encourage all of you to think about your relationship as gardeners to the natural world. Should your garden really be all about you and what you like? Or do you agree with me that we should also consider that….

Sparing the ‘Rod, Spoiling the Bees

If seeding goldenrod on a property already bursting with goldenrod species is bringing coals to Newcastle, colour me soot-black.  Because that is what I did several years ago, on the basis of one September plant sighting in a border at the Montreal Botanical Garden.  It was my first introduction to Solidago speciosa and I was charmed.  The following November, I threw a few ounces of seed around our cottage property on Lake Muskoka, a few hours north of Toronto.

Showy goldenrod - a good wildling

When scores of seedlings with bright-red stems and rather large, floppy leaves appeared the following spring, growing less than 30 cm (1 foot) high in their first season, I was a little puzzled as to their intentions. Little did I know that the showy goldenrod was growing tenacious tap roots well down into our sandy-gravelly, acidic soil until they hit the hard granite of the Precambrian Shield on which I garden here at the cottage.  Then it was content and ready to grow tall the next season, though always with large, floppy basal leaves.

Solidago speciosa on Lake Muskoka

Speciosa means “showy” and showy goldenrod lives up to its billing.  Depending on the richness of the soil and its moisture-retentiveness, it ranges in height from 120-150 cm (4 to 5 feet) and its dense inflorescence packed with tiny golden flowers is indeed very beautiful.  As mentioned, the stem (not on all plants, but most) is rich red, adding to the visual appeal.  But, like all its golden-flowered cousins, it is not a plant to encourage if you’re nervous about invasive tendencies for it is not only showy, but a little pushy, too. However, its single-stemmed growth habit means it isn’t quite as difficult to remove as a tangled thicket of Canada goldenrod (S. canadensis) or even the rough-leafed goldenrod (S. rugosa) shown below, whose roots found a devious hiding spot under huge boulders placed to hold the soil at the top of our hillside.

Rough-leafed goldenrod-Solidago rugosa

What is very distinctive about showy goldenrod is its ultra-late flowering season.  Long after the bees have taken all the nectar from the Canada goldenrod, rough-leafed goldenrod, gray goldenrod (S. nemoralis) and stout goldenrod (S. squarrosa) and merging with the end of the season of stiff goldenrod (S. rigida), showy goldenrod comes along like an early autumn candy shop, ready to dispense its pollinator favours until after Canadian thanksgiving in October, barring a hard freeze.
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Solidago speciosa with native bees

With the many fall asters coming into bloom, it is now the sweet game in town for the bees.  Bumble bees, other native bees and hoverflies are crazy about it and on a sunny day in late September or early October, the golden plumes are literally crawling with them.  As night temperatures drop, I often find bumble bees sleeping on them in the morning, waiting for enough solar heat to power their wings.  It will be the very last flower they see in their short lives.

Solidago speciosa - closeup

And like all the other goldenrods, of course, it is a great cut flower, and charming in a late September bouquet, especially with other late season perennials like magenta-pink New York ironweed (Vernonia novaboracensis), sweet blackeyed Susan (Rudbeckia tomentosa) and sky-blue aster (Symphyotrichum oolentangiensis).

Showy goldenrod with late wildflowers

And, no, goldenrods do not cause allergies – it’s the nefarious ragweed (Ambrosia artemesiifolia) blooming at the same time with its innocuous flowers that is the culprit.