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White flowers of early summer

2008 June 26

Originally published June 26, 2008
Daisy fleabane is drought-tolerant and attracts goldfinches. Photo by Ken Moore.
Daisy fleabane is drought-tolerant and attracts goldfinches. Photo by Ken Moore

By Ken Moore

They began flowering weeks ago and they are still making a show along roadsides and wherever folks allow them on their lawns and in their gardens.

I give native daisy fleabane, Erigeron annuus, freedom to grow wherever it suits itself in my wild landscape. Masses of tiny white daisy flowers on multi-branching stems, three to five feet tall, cheer up my yard and garden areas for weeks and weeks. This year, they’re flowering in profusion everywhere, in spite of the continuing drought.

Goldfinches are attracted to the seed heads of the fleabane. It’s amazing how those thread-thin fleabane stems can support those birds. I generally don’t see the goldfinches until I’ve walked up close enough to frighten them into flight and then I’m aware of the plant stems rocking back and forth, relieved of the weight of the feasting birds.

Our pioneer forebears considered this annual wildflower an insect repellant, thus the rather unappealing name, fleabane. I wish they were effective for ticks. The extensive use of fleabane species by Native Americans throughout America for medicinal and ceremonial purposes almost defies description.

Where fleabane is allowed to grow and flourish in and around the garden, the effect is the abandoned exuberance of an English cottage garden. In addition, the common fleabane is a fantastic cut flower, being a showy companion with any flower.

Another showy white flower is the biennial Queen Anne’s lace, Daucus carota, the wild carrot parent of our cultivated carrots. Following its introduction by European settlers centuries ago, it so quickly became a common weed that Native Americans utilized it as a food and medicinal herb.

It is regarded as a serious exotic invasive in some parts of our nation, particularly in the Midwestern prairie restorations, but it doesn’t seem to pose a real problem in our local Piedmont. It is such a beautiful work of art that I am always careful to leave groups of them scattered about my wild landscape, and they are a great contrast mixed in with daylilies. Like the fleabane, it’s not going to stay in place, but will move about wherever seed can find a foothold on a bare patch of soil.

So how do you know you have one or more of these plants freely moving about in your yard and garden? Well, recognizing the carrot-like foliage of the Queen Anne’s lace in the late summer and winter is rather simple. Recognizing the winter rosettes of fleabane is a bit more difficult; to the unaccustomed eye, the leaves simply look like any other green leaves. The certain way to learn to recognize a volunteer plant in your landscape is to allow it to grow until it flowers. Then you’ll know what you have and whether or not it’s a keeper.

Many beautiful and truly drought-tolerant plants are routinely “weeded” from our gardens because we simply don’t know what we have.

It is easy to get lost in the beauty of just a part of the flower head of Queen Anne’s Lace. Photo by Ken Moore.
It is easy to get lost in the beauty of just a part of the flower head of Queen Anne’s Lace. Photo by Ken Moore

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