What's Bloomin' in the Barden in Early July

During our Sunday morning volunteer sessions at the Botanical Art Garden in Herrontown Woods, we've been doing lots of editing of nature's tremendous creativity. While we're weeding out low creepers like cinquefoil and vetch, limiting the prickly blackberries and wineberries, and pulling out vines like oriental bittersweet and Japanese honeysuckle, the native wildflowers have been cheering us on.

Here's the classic purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) blooming in the circle of labeled wildflowers around the gazebo.

Competing in the white spire category are bottlebrush buckeye,

Culver's Root,

Black Cohosh,

and Spanish Bayonet (Yucca filamentosa). Of these four spire-shaped flowers, only the black cohosh can be encountered along the trails. The others are native but not commonly seen growing in the wilds of Princeton.

There are still some clouds of Tall Meadow Rue blooming, 

and some beebalm poking through here and there.

This pokeweed was lucky to sprout in a spot large enough to accommodate its gracefully gangly growth. 

And I was surprised to find Enchanter's Nightshade looking so enchanting, on an embankment overlooking a stream next to the parking lot. 

One of my favorites, and a favorite of the pollinators, is Shrubby St. Johnswort. Walking by a six foot stand of it the other day, I was surprised by the intensity of the pollinators, and was reminded of a phrase in a poem close to my heart: "the bee-loud glade," from Yeats' The Lake Isle of Innisfree. To keep the paths clear, we're potting up this small shrub's many seedlings to sell to visitors to plant in their own yards.

Meanwhile, in the raingarden that protects Veblen House from runoff, a buttonbush is blooming near a bluebird house.