Saturday, August 2, 2008

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

29 comments:

  1. Good morning all! Blogger had a bit of a problem with sitemeter last night. Apparently it somehow got a bug. I have removed sitemeter and am now able to access it. Anyone else with the same problem may need to try this too.

    Dawn, This is a beautiful flower. The display of it is so awesome!

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  2. Tina,

    New flower to me! It is lovely and a similar color to false dragonhead. More detail on sitemeter please!

    Gail

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  3. Gail, It appears ALL blogs that had sitemeter have a bug somehow. Thankfully we can still access the dashboard, I and Cindy have deleted that function from our blogs and now they work. That is all I know-had to get the blog working! That is all I know.

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  4. Forgot to say, there are alternatives to sitemeter but maybe they will get it fixed. You can email me if you want to know some I have used since I switched from the FTP with no problem, some others have had problems.

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  5. Love the purple flower! I have never seen nor heard of Fireweed until now. Interesting plant. The top picture is spectacular!

    Yep I had problems with several sights last night. Was driving me crazy I tell ya. After 12 hours of being off the computer, then no blogs, I was having withdrawals.. lol.. Happy to see your Posting is fine with the bug Dawn...

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  6. What a pretty wildflower and thanks for the folklore on it.

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  7. Oh Skeeter, I can't get to mine and just mailed Tina, I was going nuts! Til now I couldn't get to either site and not to sitemeter but everything else! Deleting sitemeter means when fixed you have to set up a new one? Argh! Back to fireweed, it is wonderful all grouped together, we live by the powerlines and I'm sure there is a bunch down there but we had severe downpours for the last two days, good thing I'm not driving yet, the driveway was flooded! Neighbor cleared all the pine needles from it, everyone gone to football---Already!!

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  8. Skeeter, You are funny. Mr. Fix-it thought the whole situation was amusing and had no sympathy. I feel your pain though.

    PG, Thanks! And thanks for the help on the rain barrels. You were pretty smart to figure out the sitemeter thing. I thought it was that when I went to site meter and it too was not working. Then I visited some other blogs and the same thing! What a pain and scare I got and probably all of us.

    Dawn, I emailed you but if you can't work it out, then call me. Don't worry about sitemeter. It is easy to set up and you can start the count at what it was before. There are also a few other counting things out there that I use and I like. I haven't had any problems with them yet.

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  9. Got it! But, yah I was at a dead panic too.

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  10. Wow what a beautiful weed!!! I would love some in my garden too!!! What a great plant to have blooming after the daylilies too!!!

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  11. Lucky you Dawn with the rain. We have not even had a half inch in over a week. However, I guess that is better than nothing.

    Sure is a pretty "weed" and I remember you and Lola (think it was Lola) talking about it but I don't think I have ever seen it so you will have to show me when I am at your place. The foliage on it in the second and fourth pic looks like a wild iris but the flower looks like it should be in the phlox family. Why does the foliage look so different in the first and third pic?

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  12. Hi Cindee, I'm not sure about fireweed in Cal. But if your far North Cal., it could be....this grows easily No United States but is really a Canadian flower.
    Mom, The second and last pic is of my fireweed, it has sprouted next to the irises, look closer and you'll see the spindle like stem with alternating leaves pointing outward. This flower is a willow herb, I think that means it doesn't form in whorls like alot of herbs do. The third pic is a print out of a place in the Yukon (it's on their territory flag), the upload from the internet wouldn't load this picture but it did the first one. That's why the first pic looks so vibrant, it was a bummer but try as I might it wouldn't work. I think the first pic is a stand in Oregon.
    I asked anonymous if she saw this weed while visiting up north, she hadn't but Nina saw fields of them in Alaska. Lola was telling us about her hubby burning controlled fires in the smokey mtns. I sent Nina a sprig, hope she'll be on later, she looked it up in her books and found it was rare to grow in Tenn. Hope it's hanging on. The stands in Alaska must be a wonder, so beautiful. They will flower for awhile esp. if they are large, can grow to 5 ft.

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  13. Dawn, I was excited when I saw the beautiful pictures of the fireweed. We were in Alaska and Canada around the middle of August last year, and they were in full bloom and beautiful.

    The sprout you sent to me had grown to about 12 inches with a new one spouting off it. The larger sprout dried up, but the new one is looking good. According to the web they are hardy in zones 3-9 and according to the book on wildflowers of Tennessee they are found in the higher elevations in Tennessee. With the high temps we have been having it may not survive for me, but I can hope!

    Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

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  14. Oh, that's good news Nina! Still keeping my fingers crossed for a success.

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  15. Hey all, Good news. Site Meter is fixed and back up. Hopefully the problem does not happen again. All data is still intact (though nothing showing for today). You all will want to add it back in the same way you initially added it in. Frances did nothing and it worked itself out. Way to go! Also the tech people at Site Meter did an awesome job fixing the situation too!

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  16. As I said before that is a beautiful flower on the fire weed. Sure wish they grew down here. I never saw any after the company my hubby worked for would control burn. Now I suspect it is too hot here for them to grow. Control burns were a good thing--it helps keep wild fires down, it helps with poinous snakes population. In all it was a very good thing. After a control burn the grass would come up & feed the animals, like deer or any grass eating animal. The other animals benefited also.

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  17. Lola, I'm sure lots and lots of fireweed came back too. This stuff loves the burnt matter. I believe in controlled burns, I think if it's not done we would have alot more burned and loose wildfires in our forests. Devastating the system.

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  18. Forgot to say....yah! for sitemeter, I got all my data including for today. Boy! That was quick even on Saturday!

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  19. We repaired our fence today and I jumped on the red rider while the Saint push mowed smaller areas. Then I weed whacked and the Saint got out the blower. Wow, were we hot and smelly by the end of that task… lol…

    We went to the Fried Green tomato fest in SC. Was a bust for us! Hundreds of bikers & babes, hot as heck, line of at least 50 people waiting for the maters and only one pot frying one mater at a time! Lots of people sipping long necks and having a grand time but not us. We left and went to Chinese place for dinner. Bummer, I sure did want some fried green maters! It’s a fried green tomato fest people, get some fryers going here! Lol… Chinese with cold iced tea while sitting in air conditioning was just fine by us….

    now time for a Netflix movie!

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  20. I like that wild flower! I would love to see that growing in our wild slope with some rudbeckia.

    I didn't know anything about the sitemeter until you mentioned it. I took it off my blog. I've always found Internet Explorer of all versions to be buggy. I use Firefox, it works good for me and its free!

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  21. That would be pretty with brown eyes susan! Now you got me thinking......

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  22. Mom, I was wondering where you were today. I missed you I guess. Too much going on to keep up with everything. Jimmy has orientation at high school on Monday, then school starts Friday. Hard to believe.

    Skeeter, It was hot here today too. Mr. Fix-it thought he was funny wringing his SWEATY shirt out on me! Eww!

    Dave, Firefox is better I think too. We use it on our other computer but it is so hard to get me to change.

    Dawn, Lola, Nina, Anonymous and all-ttyl Time for family time-no blog!

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  23. Forgot to say-as is usual lately! Dawn, glad you got your sitemeter stuff back. Seems back to normal.

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  24. It is quite beautiful, isn't it? It reminds me of the little blue canterbury bells that grow wild around here.

    Prssed flowers. I haven't done that in years. Maybe it is time to get back into it.

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  25. Wow, it is such a pretty wild flower. I wish I had that on my lawn instead of the weeds. It's just so pretty.

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  26. It's beautiful. My parents have some mixed in their garden but they have to be careful as it seems somewhat invasive. Doesn't look like that's a problem where you have it.

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  27. Hi Eve, I pressed some of these a couple years back, they are perfect, I like the single petals flowers, press really well.
    DP, that would be sooo nice, these "weeds" seem to take care of themselves.
    Kathleen, where do your parent reside? No not to invasive unless it has a open spot to itself, then they become fields.

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  28. Hi Dawn --this is such a pretty flower (weed) I wonder why I never saw it back home? Maybe it doesn't like the particular area I come from??? It's okay --I get to view all the pretties online --thanks to the blog. Next time were up at Hubby's old homestead I'll have to check and see if they grow it there --he is a bit further north than I was. See ya!

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