Fireweed

I've talked about this little weed before, (all great flowers start as weeds, don't they?) and now it is flowering in my perennial bed. In 1994, Jack of all Trades and myself started digging and landscaping with a very big backhoe, by the time we were finished this one lone flower stood. It was the first thing we planted in the bed.

I found out later, it's called Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium), aptly named because it's the first thing to grow freely in open clearings and in greatest luxuriance in burnt fallows. When the brush of the burnt areas overwhelm fireweed, it dies, but the seeds remain in the soil waiting for the slightest peek of light.

It flowers mid to late summer, each successive flower blooming just above the one below it until the last flower at the top of the stalk has bloomed. By that time the bottom flowers turn to a cotton seed ready to be carried by the wind. Alaskan lore states once all the seeds turn cottony, six more weeds til winter. In Alaska, candies, syrups, jellies, and ice cream are made from this flower, the nectar has a distinctive spiced flavor.

My fireweed are a little short this year because I discovered I need major pruning of the canopy above, not enough light is reaching these poor little guys. Our one lone plant has multiplied to about 12 stalks because once it is established it will spread by a long root. My neighbors comment on this purple/pinkish flower, it's always the next show after the day lilies.

They are perfect pressed....In the Garden