Late Spring Flowers

 Summer is just around the corner, and the flowers of late spring are in full bloom.

The columbine native to eastern North America (Aquilegia candensis) is red and yellow. I planted a patch about 12 years ago, and it has spread by self-seeding.

A couple years later I tossed some mixed columbine seeds into the garden and I now have a variety of colors - blue, yellow, purple, orange. Columbines hybridize fairly easily, each year brings a few new color combinations, along with the old faithful popping up from established roots.

I've been growing pitcher plants for a 12+ years as well. My original "bog barrels" sprung leaks, so last week I combined them into this old copper kettle Lon found while cleaning out an old shed. (So old that the supporting timbers are round black locust logs.) I still need to trim back the plastic sheeting that keeps the kettle water-tight. Pitcher plants like "wet feet" and poor soil - a mix of plain peat moss and sand.

I think pitcher plant flowers are really interesting - they are unlike any other flower.  The pitchers are modified leaves that collect rainwater and trap insects. This is a yellow pitcher plant, Sarracenia flava.

Red pitcher plant, Sarracenia rubra.

Our woods are filled with mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), which is just beginning to bloom.

On our walks I've been collecting seed pods from trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) - waiting until the leaves were wilting. The flower stalk bends over and touches the ground as the pods develop. As my collected pods dried, the seeds were ejected. The seeds were larger than I had expected. The photo above shows the pods (of many different sizes) and seeds on 5mm-grid paper (that's roughly 5 squares to the inch). Today I tossed the pods and seeds into my shade garden. According to my sources, it will take about 4 years before I find out if my efforts were successful.