I couldn't care less about Pete Wentz buzzing at John Mayer's gate. What I liked about the photo is the cool iron gate and the stand of Horsetail some landscape designer put it. I'ts funny that in LA, Horsetail is a garden beauty and here in farm country it's considered a noxious weed. It grows in damp places like bogs and frog ponds and is very pretty. Around here we also call it Pop Weed because it's oddly jointed and you can pop it apart and snap it back together, like the kid's pop bead necklaces. I'm having some of it and I don't care what nasy letters I get from the town council.
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Other "obnoxious" weeds of Iowa...
Purple Thistle (picture by Afrijc)..okay, I get why we can't have this in our gardens. It's stickery, speads fast and clogs up combines costing farmers time and money. It is also gorgeous, huge, magnificent and benificial to wild life. I'm sick of the opinion that we should wipe it out. There has to be a place for it. It's a prarie flower and we are a prarie state.
My favorite wildflower of all time..Queen Anne's Lace. I'll always have it in my garden. I don't care what anyone says..it's delicate, it can't hurt your damn combines. Call city hall..I'm having it!
This beauty is Birdsfoot Treefoil. If agriculture kicks ecologys ass, this will be gone. It's a bush ground cover that doesn't even like farm fields. If they succeed in wiping out this plant, they will also kill out our population of ground birds, because this is what they eat. Why waste gas mowing ditches when you can plant this to take over the real weeds??
Another fav of mine, this is Poison Hemlock. It grows freely around here and I've never seen it in a corn field. It likes woody areas and there's a water version. It's the prettiest thing..it's a huge fern and can get 8 foot high and the leaves turn pure white. A show stopper. I don't know why people are so afraid of it, heck, almost everything is poisonous. I always have this witchy plant growing. Yeah, I love wild plants. I just think we need to stop trying to wipe out our nature heratige. It just makes no sense to me and it's sad. Personally, I think nature is still winning the fight.
16 comments:
i want poison hemlock!!! i also want deadly nightshade, castor beans, and a few other poisonous plants and have a 'poison garden' :P yeah i'm weird...but i'm serious....
those farmers in iowa have the life....they dictate what plants live, and they get paid for NOT growing crops! when i lived there, there'd be farmers whining about how they made very little money, etc and then you'd drive in the country and see their houses with pools, satalites (back when satalites were a new concept), new pick ups, etc....
i never saw Birdsfoot treefoil before! LOVELY!! i want some seeds for that!!!
THIS is why I read you and crabbie - plain old horse sense that seems terribly rare.
I'm with you on the ground cover and ditch idea.
Btw, aren't many poisonous plants helpful for certain health problems?
Smart idea, misstia.
With the threat of water shortages, we're being encouraged to grow wildflowers instead of cultivated varieties of plants.
I just cut a huge bouquet of Dame's Rocket and the scent is wonderful. But I'm a little ashamed to have it alongside my peonies, roses, irises, etc, only because of its reputation. Silly!
Beautiful pictures!
There's tons of poisonous plants no wants to talk about because they're "accepted", like Christmas Poinsetta and tomato leaves..that's right, tomatos are good..do not eat the leaves. And castor beans have a bad rep and are outlawed in some gardens, but, they are not poisonous unless you process the beans into a poison. It's an arduous process too. You'd have to want to kill something pretty bad to do it. Oh, and many people still don't know that the popular garden plant foxglove is digitalis. Look that up, man! Don't ya just love learning about what plants can do? I do.
Beautiful flowers, DD. I love wildflowers...I especially love driving past a whole field of them. They smell SO wonderful. Hopefully, one day people will realize the value and the beauty of indigenous plants.
Have you ever heard of people who stop cutting their grass and encouraging wildflowers and wild grasses to grow in, instead? I've seen a couple of programs about it on Canadian TV over the years. It's a growing trend, although it's a great way to start a major war with your neighbours. I wish I could remember what it's called, but basically you're letting a little prairie grow in your yard. I find it really beautiful, and it sounds wonderful too, since all the birds and crickets and other little critters congregate in your yard.
CapriciousCat
don't forget DD that salvia is now abused by kids wanting a 'high' and poppies of course----poppies are supposedly banned by the federal gub'ment but most government offices HAVE poppies growing outside! and then there's idjuts who eat morning glory seeds--and the lucky ones survive a trip to the hospital...
Yep, Tia, you're informed and correct. We all jnow by now, Poppies have to be deliberatly injured to make the drug. Most dopies don't have a clue or the concentration to dedicate themselves to the process. Salvia and Mornin' Glory highs are crazy. People die!
CapriciousCat..if you let a prarie grow in your yard around here..you will pay a huge fine until you mow it. Sick, huu?
Most members of the carrot family are poisonous. Hemlock is not good for much and will kill you. Queen Anne's Lace however is wild carrot and you can eat the root if you want to. But you prob would not want to. Obviously DD knows the difference btwn QAL and hemlock but they're very easy to mistake for each other.
I do know..I love them all. I know about most mushrooms and toadys around here too, but, only because I had a good teacher. I'd never recomend eating anything wild unless you're 100% sure.
This is my prediction: The environmentally-friendly "prairie yard" will become the norm, while the well-mowed, over-watered, weed-free lawn will go the way of the dinosaur. Off the track a bit, but look at smoking. It's illegal to smoke in most public places now (well, at least it is here in Quebec, not sure about anywhere else). Smoking is no longer politically correct. Same thing will happen with environment-related issues. If it's not considered PC, it's history.
CapriciousCat
MisTia, be careful and check the toxicity of the plants you want...for your pets safety. I know the nightshade is deadly as is lily of the valley & english ivy leaves. You can find anything you need to know online. I know you love your doggies, as do we. So, check that out. I had to dig up all my lily of the valley this year when we got a puppy. It kills dogs. But it is hard to kill. Still working on it, it spreads across the dirt, instead of under, so it goes fast. Just keep the dogs out of areas that might harm them. Lily of the valley kills within minutes, before you'd even know what was going on. I wish i didn't have it at all. Very scary. Just gotta keep the dogs away from that side of the house. & we also have horsetail here in Indy. I get it by ditches and let it dry for arrangements. It turns golden when it's dried. It's a cool, cool plant.
thanks! I do have lillies of the valley, but i keep Pan away from there! never heard of the ivy one though....pan rolls around in it (doesn't eat it though)....Molly rolled around in it too....will have to start keeping her away from that!
if i plant a 'poison garden' i'd have it fenced off....
Most medicinal plants can also be a poison, depends on the dose.
Some of the most deadly poisons on earth are probably in your spice rack right now.
Why anyone would go to the trouble to MAKE a poison is beyond me, geez, you hate someone that much, buy em a burger and top it with toxic spinach or any other FDA approved e coli infested treat.
Just as effective and way more legal.
I decided this year that I'm sick of being told what is and isn't a weed. I have creeping charlie growing in our front flower bed and it's so thick and tall that it's practically a bush. It has beautiful purple flowers on it and gorgeous foliage. But most gardeners would shit if you told them you purposely planted the stuff.
I even dug up some chick weed and stuck it in a pot. It's nice and drapey and has pretty little white flowers on it. I would rather it not get into the lawn, but it isn't hurting anyone in a container on the deck. It's just a pretty little vine.
I also have hops, which I think are illegal here, and morning glories, which are sometimes referred to as bind weed. "Weeds" are attractive to me because they are fast to spread and require little (to no) attention.
Nobody hates nature more than a "certain" type of gardener, you know exactly the kind I am talking about.
A lawn that looks like the grass was cut by a laser and enough chemicals to kill every insect on the planet.
Gives me the creeps to see a garden like that because I know what kind of control freak has them.
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