Blue, Who Are You?

At this time of year, I always welcome our native Blue Sage (Salvia azurea), with open arms.  It has self-sown itself from the prairie into my garden beds, and I strive to remember what it looks like as a seedling so that I can enjoy it in full August maturity.  That sky blue hue, as I've noted before, just fills up my soul with peace.

If only I could remember to cut it back in early July so that it would "bush up" and wouldn't get so tall and sprawlacious.  This photo of a Blue Sage clump, taken at the very front of my landscaping, shows how it eventually succumbs to gravity and sprawls from the raised bed to the buffalo grass below, brushing my legs or lawnmower each time I go by.  Blue sage also goes by the name of Pitcher sage, to honor Dr. Zina Pitcher, a U.S. Army surgeon and botanist.  A botanical alias, S. pitcheri, seems to be the same plant.   The roots can extend into the prairie 6-8 feet.







I received a blue surprise this afternoon, however, in the form of an unknown blue flower in the same bed.  This slightly-lighter-blue sage with fern-like leaves popped up in the center of the bed.  At present, it is about 3 foot high and wide and just starting to bloom.  I'm surprised that I didn't think it was a weed and pull it out earlier.  I do vaguely remember seeing the foliage last month, thinking it looked like ragweed but unsure, and making a conscious decision to let it bloom so that I could identify it.






Look closely at that finely cut foliage with what surely looks like a sage flower starting to bloom among it.  I quickly snatched these two iPhone photos today so that I could spread word of this wonder to the world.   But what sage is it?  I spent two hours tonight searching for other possible salvias in the region.  I searched the USDA plants database and came up empty for anything that should be in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, or Nebraska.  My local wildflower books didn't help.  In desperation, I broke off a piece of the plant and placed it on the scanner bed, to get a better look at the structure of the foliage (see below), and to upload it to others for identification.  I even assigned it a study name, Salvia azurea roushii, just in case it was a previously undescribed species and this was my designated fifteen minutes of fame.



In the end, however, I simply proved that the entire world should be happy that I became a veterinarian and not a botanist.  I simply spent two hours being an idiot.  Finally, examining the stem of the specimen I scanned, I realized that it didn't have the characteristic mint-like, squared-off stem that it should have as a sage.  So back I went outside, and on closer examination, found what should have been obvious to me at first glance.  This IS a Salvia azurea, growing up through the middle of an Ambrosia, probably Western ragweed (Ambrosia psilostachya), my very common garden nemesis.   I let grow, just this one time, almost to maturity, and it rewarded me by wasting my evening.  Oh well, sometimes that's how the life of an amateur botanist goes.

BumbleBee Harvest Time

Ornamental grasses are all the rage in the fall garden these days and gardeners also crave any shrub whose foliage turns red, orange, or yellow to light up our fall landscapes.  As we design our landscapes solely to ease us softly into bitter winter, however, we should not forget that while it's harvest time all over Kansas and the Midwest for the grain needed to sustain mankind though the winter, it's harvest time for all the other creatures of Earth as well.

While fall gardeners still value flowering plants for adding color to the garden, there is no better reason to keep fall-blooming plants in your garden than to provide that final fall burst of energy for the many creatures who need nectar for winter stores, whether it's the hummingbirds migrating south for the winter or it is the bumblebee at the right, sipping at the 'Blue Mist' caryopteris.  In fact, take a closer look at that blue-collar workaholic bumblebee; covered in pollen from the many visits, it doesn't have time for a shower or a deodorant spritz, it's just buzz buzz buzz till the cold saps its energy.  Bumblebees store only a few days energy in the nest and each individual must reach a certain weight before entering their hibernation state if they are to survive the winter.  Astonishing efficient and cooperative, they leave a little scent deposit on every flower they visit, a gentle way of communicating to the next bumblebee to come along not to bother wasting time at that particular blossom.  In the fall, they benefit most from lavenders, asters, sunflowers, hyssop, sedums, goldenrods and salvias, which accounts for the activity around my lavenders and for all the Blue Sage (Salvia azurea), goldenrod, and sunflowers blooming all over the Kansas prairie right now.  I've not had a lot of luck with heather here in the Flint Hills, but a dense patch would help shelter the bumblebees in inclement weather so it might be worth a try in a sheltered area. Several sources noted that honeysuckles are also valuable in fall as a rich supply of nectar for bumblebees.  And I noticed just this weekend that my 'Florida Red' honeysuckle was blooming again.  Smart vine, that honeysuckle!

Of course, other flowers and plants are useful for these and other visitors.  The  Buddleia sp. keep up their display to attract butterflies like the late season Thoas Swallowtail pictured at the right.  The milkweeds sacrifice themselves for the greater glory of the Monarch.  And of course, nothing likes the honeysuckle better than the migrating hummingbirds.

Every plant has its favorite pollinator, every insect a favored plant, all synchronized to mix and mingle just at the right time to keep them all going, year after year, eon after eon.  Seems like there's a Grand Plan to all this, doesn't it? 

Welcome Natives

I like to tell visitors to my garden that I have a lot of weeds in my garden because I'm trying to promote the free seeding of native prairie perennials. That gets me a lot of pats on the back from wild-eyed environmentalists and everybody likes a little praise.  It's true, though.  I don't like to use preemergents in my garden beds simply because it will also suppress native plants from sprouting wherever they like to pop up.  It means a few more weeds and crabgrass, but one pays the price for one's choices. As my garden evolves, I've learned more and more to choose to nurture the surprise native plant treasures that the Flint Hills provides me. 

I have two favorites that spread from the surrounding prairie to various parts of my garden.  One is the Blue Sage (Salvia azurea) that blooms in August and September in my corner of the prairie.   Also called Pitcher Sage after Dr. Zina Pitcher, a early 1800's U.S. Army surgeon and botanist, Blue Sage grows two to five feet tall with the five foot height more common in a cultivated and mulched garden bed. Its roots extend six to eight feet into the deep prairie soils below, so in my garden it never gets or needs supplemental water even in the current +100 August weather. I've found that the plant gets a little bushier, it doesn't sprawl as much, and I can delay the bloom if I trim it back a little bit in late July to about two feet tall. But most important is that heavenly sky blue color so coveted by many gardeners and by this gardener in particular.  There are other blue salvias, of course, but in my Zone 5 garden this is the one that sticks.  Over ten years I've got six plants now growing in my various beds, at the cost of only recognizing the seedlings when they first begin to grow and leaving them alone. And truly, how better to find the right micro-environment for a specific plant than letting them seed themselves?

My second favorite of the self-seeding prairie natives is the native Asclepias tuberosa, or Butterfly Weed.  Popping up here and there in the most barren, arid spots I have, this bright orange native draws in butterflies in July and August like, well, moths to a flame.  There are eight current clumps of this perennial in my landscaping and since it has a long taproot and is difficult to transplant, I'm lucky to have it seed itself in areas that it likes.  It is well-behaved, never invasive, and keeps to a polite two to three foot height without trimming or coddling.  A better perennial for a garden can't be found and I hope it escapes the ravages of the hybridizers so I don't have to push away my native orange variety for some muddled pink or off-white ugly cousin.