I gave you a thumbs-up just for the quote. Will read the article in a bit, but had to say how perfect the quote is for wildflower week

Thanks, fiwit! I love quotes and you'll find another one when you read the article.
And I love thumbs ups too!

I heart wildflowers too!

Sharon, nice article, a reminder of how special wildflowers are.

I love them. too! Nothing says 'Spring' like the first wildflowers in our woods. We have a beautiful assortment of them. I just discovered a new one about half a mile down the road, which always excites me. I hope I remember to bring my camera next time I drive past it, and I'll post it to see if you recognize it, Sharon.

Hear, hear!

Many wildflowers have disappeared for lack of their habitat.

Wish we could mandate that a certain percentage of new or abandoned housing would be assigned to creating whatever habitat would be appropriate to any given area. With regard to the parks around here, when's the last time anyone hiking in our neck of the woods saw a few acres of trillium blooming in the wild? I haven't seen any in my lifetime. Over the past 40 years, DH and I have seen unbelievable areas of park land gobbled up around here by invasives such as multiflora rose, bittersweet, thumbtear vine, basket grass, Russian Olive, etc.

Somewhere I read that America has more folks locked up in prisons, per capitata, than any other country in the world. There is our cheap labor to make and maintain those habitats and plant communities. In the planet I live on, none of them would be allowed out of jail until they learned basic concepts of (and respect for) ecology and habitat, as well as the names and attributes of any plants they would be required to plant and tend.

Well, I can dream. Thank you, Sharon, for this inspiration :)

Karen

Karen, you might want to rent/watch a film called Greenfingers. Actually, any gardener should watch it, but your comments brought it immediately to mind. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt02...

Thank you, Mary - I'll look for it.

Netflix has it, but not for streaming

Glad you enjoyed the article, Ladies, I enjoy anything related to wildflowers. Can't wait to see your picture, Renee, you might also want to post it to the folks on the Wildflowers Forum.

Christine, thanks to you and Frostweed for Wildflowers week, it will no doubt be one of my favorites. I'm anxious to read the week's articles.

Karen, so sweet to hear from you and I love your idea! I rarely ever see a movie but Fiwit, I'll see if I can find the one you mention.

Thanks Ladies, enjoy Wildflower Week!

Bluespiral- you bring up a very good point about habitat. So many of these "wildflowers" won't grow just anywhere. We can't just plow up a space and expect all of our favorite wildflowers to grow there! Often, they want prairie conditions, or forest conditions, or swampy conditions to thrive.

Pokeweed...Henbit Deadnettle.... Part of me goes "yuck" when I see them in my yard, but my heart reminds me that I want a yard that's friendly to wildlife. So I leave the henbit alone, not only because its inconspicuous purple flowers are attractive hwen nothing else is blooming, but because it feeds the pollinators all winter long, it seems.

And pokeweed... that's my love/hate relationship. I accept it in the areas I've declared "for the critters," but fight it in the areas I've declared "for myself."

Dandelions? I've always enjoyed them, and was delighted when you or Dave posted here about how it fixes nitrogen in the soil, and how its long taproots bring nutrients closer to the surface. I love being able to have a "justifiable reason" to leave a supposed weed in my yard, in case anyone ever complains about them.

My brother loves to tell me the story of a friend of his who moved to a suburban neighborhood where everyone had pristine lawns. Next time his friend was back in his old neighborhood, he dug up a dandelion and transplanted it to his new front yard, just to shake up the status quo.

Henbit is another plant that is good for erosion control and is very high in iron and vitamins as a food or as a medicinal plant. Actually, so is poke, though its use medicinally was a long time ago and with much care. As a tiny new green plant, it isn't so toxic, later it is, but was boiled and washed and boiled and washed and boiled again to use as a food and as a tonic. I've seen my Aunt Bett do that, and tasted it a few times. Tastes and look a lot like spinach, but I would not recommend it. Aunt Bett knew what she was doing, I don't.

But I do know I drew and painted all over the mountains with poke berries, drew on rocky cliffs, old wood and anything else I could find. I also decorated a shirt or two with their dye.

And you already know all about the dandelion, as an addition to salads or as battered blooms fried in oil, I highly recommend them.

Funny about wildflowers, so many look at them as problems when most of them used to be considered free and highly valued treasures.

Glad you save some of them for the wildlife, Fiwit. Thanks.