Since my surgeries have gone well this past year, I am looking forward to working in my yard come spring. I have a list of projects and a list of plants I would love to work on and grow. Including native plants in my yard is a special goal for me.
I grew up in Northeast Iowa spending a lot of time outdoors in a large forested acreage. I was very curious about the plants that grew around me and I would research their names and uses. I still have a booklet I made in school about edible wild plants of Iowa. A lot of these plants grow in central Iowa where I now live, but not naturally in the city.
I hope to beg, borrow or buy seeds or seedlings from my relatives who live in the country. Or purchase from a native plant vendor, locally or online. Prairie Moon Nursery is one such online vendor that I gleefully pin their pictures to my Pinterest project boards. Here are a few flowers that have a special place in my heart.
American Columbine
I remember sitting on a rock outside my grandparents house and pinching the tops off of this flower to eat them. We called it a honeysuckle and the roundish tips on the top of the flower were sweet like honey.
Wild Blue Phlox
One of the most fragrant flowers, I remember picking them on Mother’s Day with my brother and presenting a bouquet to my mom. We called them Sweet Williams and they grew on the edges of the forest in the dappled shade.
May Apple
These green umbrellas were everywhere under the trees! We didn’t pick many of them but just seeing them made me happy. It was as if a fairy village had sprung up under the trees.
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