Well, I don’t know how “smooth”, but..

Yesterday, on my way back from the bank at lunch, I noticed a stand of tall yellow flowers growing in an unused lot on the corner. I turned around, stopped and walked over to look because I thought they might be cup plant. Anyway, I mentioned them to B when I got back to the office, and he didn’t know who owned the lot, but suggested MyGIS. It was on there, indeed, owned by some kind of holding company or something. I was going to try to find someone to ask about taking some of the plants, but B said that if they’re just weeds anyway (and they are), no one would care or probably even notice if I went early on a Saturday morning…so that’s exactly what I did! I left a little before 8:00AM, and B was mostly right; almost no one noticed. One guy who lives across the street did come over to see what I was doing because he was thinking maybe someone had pot plants there or something, but I told him it was a “roadside weed project”, and that the plants I was collecting were Symphyotrichum, Solidago, and Silphium (the Silphium was a lie because they weren’t cup plant after all and I didn’t know what they actually were), and we chatted for a few minutes, and he left. I packed up the yellow flowers, some goldenrod, and some frost aster in HK, and headed for home. My life of crime; purloined roadside weeds. 🙂

Pre-wilted. Since I wasn’t sure what they were, I took some photos and sent them off to the experts at FlowerChecker. In a matter of hours, I had an ID…Jerusalem artichoke. They look like sunflowers because they are, but they’re not Helianthis annuus, they’re Helianthus tuberosus, and a perennial. The tubers are apparently edible, but I have no intention of eating them; I want them because butterflies and bees like them, and finches and other little songbirds like to eat the seeds.

A bit wilted, but that’s to be expected, and hopefully, I won’t have to cut them back. I will if I must, but I’m going to try to make sure that they get lots of water (and it even rained today), and maybe I can get them rooted enough that they’ll manage. I read that they can be rather aggressive, and I didn’t want them taking over any of my flowerbeds, so I put them over by the other “thug”; trumpet creeper. They can fight it out.

I didn’t see these on Friday–just the Helianthus and the goldenrod–but I wanted some when I saw them. They’re the weediest of the native asters, but they’re also one of the latest…frost asters. I like them anyway; I don’t care if they’re a bit weedy. I put some over by the boneset along the creek, and a few more in the teardrop bed. I’ll try keeping the ones in the bed trimmed and see whether that makes them a bit more “tailored”.

Just a few little flowers, and hopefully, they’ll get rooted quickly enough that I’ll have a few blooms. Maybe not, but the beautiful thing about native weeds is that they’re tough to kill.

I just put the goldenrod in a couple of spots along with the boneset. IME, goldenrod is pretty tough and spreads quickly, so I didn’t put it too near a flowerbed.

I also got the Allegheny spurge planted. Doesn’t look like much, but hopefully, the soil isn’t too dense, and the plants will do well. I didn’t get the alumroot moved, though; maybe tomorrow.

That’s all the newly planted stuff, but there’s still new stuff. Sneezeweed is busy making some flowers for me.

Zinnia kind of took over the fence, but wherever there was room, the scarlet pumpernickel did well.

Miscellaneous morning glory. God, these things are beautiful, which makes them worth fighting Charlotte and tortoise beetles for them.

EDIT: I dug around in the container of dead leaves tonight, and I found my little dude! His cocoon is barely visible, but I know he’s in there, and I can’t wait to meet him in his new form!