These short articles are written to highlight connections of the plants, history and lore of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden with different time frames or outside connections. A web of intersections.
This month a focus on pollinators: The State Fair and the Friends Annual Meeting is coming up, new vistas opening around the Garden, a strangely named plant, the tall goldenrods of the Wildflower Garden, the Pollinator Meadow's first year and a historical Garden photo.
This Month
Friends meeting guest speaker announced.
New vistas around the Wildflower Garden
Native Flowers Needed.
It's State Fair time!
We have 11 volunteers that will be hosting an EBWG table at the State Fair Horticulture Building on August 28 and 29 from 9AM - 6PM. We would appreciate donations of native wildflowers for our display bouquets. They are displayed in brown ceramic vases that we believe Eloise Butler used in her State Fair exhibits in the 19 teens. Jennifer Olson would be happy to pick them up at your home on Tuesday August 27.
Contact her at this email link if you have flowers to share.
Friends Annual Meeting and Guest Speaker
The Annual Friends of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Meeting and Lecture will be Wednesday, September 25, 2024 at 7PM
The Chalet Fireside Room, Theodore Wirth Regional Park (parking at the Golf Course lot).
All are Welcome.
Heather Holm will speak on Oaks, Fire, and Climate Change.
Friends Members please arrive 15 minutes early to vote for the Board of Directors. You will receive an email before the Meeting on the State of the Wildflower Garden and the Activity of the Friends. At the meeting there will be time for questions and concerns after the lecture.
Heather Holm is a pollinator conservationist and award-winning author of four books: Pollinators of Native Plants (2014), Bees (2017), Wasps (2021), and Common Native Bees of the Eastern United States (2022). Both Bees and Wasps have won multiple book awards including the American Horticultural Society Book Award (1018 and 2022 respectively). Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native pollinators and native plants. She participated in volunteer ecological landscape restoration projects.
The latest project is a 13-acre oak savanna restoration that will provide thriving habitat for pollinators, birds, mammals, and passive, nature-based opportunities for people.
New vistas around the Wildflower Garden
New vistas are opening in the process of restoring the meadows and oak savannas that existed in Eloise Butler’s time before the invasion of buckthorn, garlic mustard, honeysuckle and a few other unworthies.
The Friends Invasive Plant Action Group has been offering volunteers many more opportunities this summer to help remove invasive buckthorn around the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden so that the diversity of native vegetation can return to these hillsides. Eloise Butler may than recognize the area if she could return.
Jim Proctor has provided some photos of before and after scenes that demonstrate what can be accomplished by a group of determined volunteers. This summer the group is working both sides of the Wildflower Garden. The newest area is on the southeast side, clearing a hillside above a natural pond. You can see in the photos the impressive change that has occurred in just a few years.
On the west side, an area along the boundary fence trail had been cleared on the fence side only some years ago and the difference in plant habitat is remarkably shown in the photo.
Below: Now this summer the other side of that west trail is being worked to open up the hillside that looks to the west and to restore native vegetation. These two photos give an idea of views to come.
CLICK HERE FOR A PANORAMIC IMAGE OF THE TRAIL AREA
Thanks to Jim Proctor for these photos.
It's Not an Artichoke
One of the more unlikely named flowering plants is the Jerusalem Artichoke, Helianthus tuberosus, which surprisingly is a native sunflower, not from Jerusalem nor an artichoke. Because it develops edible tubers (raw or cooked) it was used extensively by Native Americans.
The newly arrived Europeans were introduced to it and promptly exported it back to Europe where it became such a commonly available foodstuff that even the commoners in London began to despise them (Parkinson 1629). Today people are still using them - foraging people do not despise them.
The plant moved westward in North America from the coast and today only a few states in the SW United States and the western costal Canadian Provinces do not have it. It was introduced to the Garden by Eloise Butler in 1909 and into the upland by Martha Crone in 1944.
The plants are tall and erect with stiff hair on the stems and leaves. Flower heads are in clusters of 3 to 15 with each head up to 4 inches wide containing 10 to 20 yellow ray flowers and numerous disc florets. Black anthers give color contrast to the deep yellow disc florets. In rainy years such as 2024 it could grow aggressively as it is not very drought tolerant.
See the plants at the Wildflower Garden. More information and photos are on our plant information sheet at this link: Jerusalem Artichoke.
Show-off Goldenrods
The tallest goldenrods in the Wildflower Garden are the Stiff and the Showy. These are two to see.
The Showy Goldenrod, Soldidago speciosa is certainly the most praiseworthy for its form and showy flowerhead and is also a magnet for bees. One is surprised by the variety of bees attracted to this flower.
The stem is unbranched with lance-shaped with coarse to fine teeth. The entire floral array on a large plant is truly magnificent. That array is a densely branched pyramid with the branches held erect not drooping like most goldenrods.
The Stiff Goldenrod, Solidago rigida, is also tall and erect, rigidly erect as the species name implies. It also is unbranched but the leaves are more oval and hairy. The floral array is somewhat flat-topped branched cluster, not a pyramid. These differences will allow you to easily identify the two plants, whereas a number of the other goldenrod species require a little more close study.
Both species are native to Minnesota and were introduced to the Wildflower Garden by Eloise Butler in her early years as Curator.
Here are links to the plant information sheets:
Showy Goldenrod
Stiff Goldenrod
Page showing all the Garden Goldenrods
Below: Stiff Goldenrod, Solidago rigida
The Pollinator Meadow Shines
Over a century after Eloise Butler curated a meadow and hillsides in what is now Theodore Wirth Regional Park, a new meadow was created in the fall of 2023.
It is called a “pollinator meadow” and was established at the entrance to the Garden off of Theodore Wirth Parkway. The project was part of the Turf to Pollinator Garden Program funded by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF). Wilderness in the City and Metro Blooms were project partners with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB).
The aim of this program is to create pollinator habitat in areas that had been planted as turf within Regional Parks of the Twin Cities Metro Area. By the end of October last year over 11,500 plants in the new meadow. More touch-up work was done this spring.
Now that we are again approaching fall we can see the result. Many late-summer flowering plants are in bloom as can be seen in the photo. Much different from the bare space see last year. As you enter the Garden entrance drive take a bit of time to observe the result.
Below: The pollinator meadow in August. Click here for larger image
Historic Photo
Seventy-four years ago on August 5, 1950 Martha Crone made this Kodachrome showing part of Birch Pond on the west side of the Garden entrance road, which is behind the trees in the background. That extensive stand of Purple Loosestrife was finally eliminated by biological means in the late 1990's. 100 years ago Purple Loosestrife was appreciated and planted for its color. Oh, what we know now! Note the white swan in the pond. For many years a pair of swans occupied the pond.
July 2024 - Utility Building Construction
July 2024 - A Vagrant for the Garden.
July 2024 - How do Hummingbirds hover?
July 2024 - Catchflys and Campions
July 2024 - A Friend of the Wildflower Garden
June 2024 - Working near to Old Andrew
June 2024 - Greenery improves many things.
June 2024 - A Queen of Summer
June 2024 - Long-leaved Bluet - an historical Garden plant
June 2024 - The first fence - what a struggle it was
May 2024 - Construction proceeds for storage buildings.
May 2024 - The two Jacob's Ladders
May 2024 - June is for wild roses
May 2024 - The well dressed man in the Garden
All selections published in 2024
All selections published in 2023