Ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata)

Ironweed
Vernonia fasciculata

Common Ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata)

Hi Lauren,
That is a good picture. Have you ever tried using this wildflower in your landscaped beds? We have a lot of it growing along the roadsides in the shade, but I have not tried it as a cultivated plant yet. I am a bit suspicious that moist soil and fertilizer might keep it from blooming, but then again, it might be quite spectacular.
By the way, I have not forgotten about the putty orchids I promised you. It has been so dry here that they are still dormant. Once the winter foliage emerges, I will email you for your address and send you some.
It rained this week, thank goodness!
My Mom has had a lot of health problems this summer, so I have not had much time to spend here at DG. Hope your summer has been good for you.
Susan

Hi Toxi, I must admit I forgot. We've had some issues here too but I suppose that's all a part of being a member of the human race. Gosh, I hope your Mom is going to be ok. Just to make you feel better, we had the second worst drought here in my area in over 100 years. Where I would have planted those native orchids would have been out of the reach of the hose by about 1000 feet. I can honestly say that if you had ever sent me any plants this year, they would have all been dead. I tried to water every thing but as the drought went on they imposed water restrictions. We didn't need watering restrictions to know not to use the water as we are on a well and started losing water pressure. Our water pressure is half of what it should be which is not good. I had to order water tankers to try to keep some of what I had here alive as it was. Tremendous losses this year.

The plant you see above is a cultivated plant. It came from The Natural Gardens Nursery. I looked it up at the time I bought it and figured where best to plant it but after that I let it go. This is the first year it is in its new home and it looks as if it is doing ok despite the drought. Yay!

Sorry to hear about your plant losses...it was so awful here that I am now busy voluntarily and gladly cutting my plant liabilities. Spent the whole darn Spring and Summer watering. Luckily, we have a creek running through the middle of our property and Missouri allows riparian water rights. I have a sump pump in it and water with that. The stream does not dry up because it is fed upstream by pumped water used to hold down the dust in a rock-crushing operation that Union Pacific owns. They treat the discharge water to correct the pH to 7.0, so my plants love it. I need a bigger pump, though, so I can operate sprinklers or drip systems. The handwatering is just totally time consuming. Sometimes I just let the hose run all night in an area.
You will be glad to learn that the putty orchids are totally drought-tolerant, since they go dormant for the summer. Anyway, I have never watered mine out in the woods and they always come back. The winter foliage is what I like to see, so plan to put them somewhere that you can appreciate it during fall, winter and spring (like close to the snow shovel shed!) They bloom in late May, or early June. The seed stalks persist for most of the summer if you don't cut them off...I usually do after a while.

I think I will mark some of the Ironweed and transplant a bit of it next spring to an area I am designing for "Fall Blooms".
By the way, my giant green dragon made a big seed head and the seeds are starting to fall off...want me to save some and send with the orchids?

Thanks for your concern about my Mom...she is down to 89 pounds but feels better, and finally quit smoking!!! They put her on thyroid medicine and took out her gallbladder, so maybe she will gain weight soon.

Susan

Not to make light of this but your Mom quit smoking and lost weight? I have never heard of this. Had to have been the gallbladder isses that dropped her weight. Goodness gracious.

With that Union Pacific Rock Crushing operation up stream, your set up is ideal. Too cool. Up here, we have nothing like them. Lucky you and I am jealous. I had basically nothing but an entire summer of watering everything I could reach. I was not alone. Some people gave up the middle of July but I sort of plugged along.

Green Dragon seed? Did you say Green Dragon seed? I lost all of the Green Dragon I bought because of this situation up here. Yes, please keep me in mind for seed.

Does anyone know if this plant is toxic to pets? It is a common wildflower here in VA & I have several wild plants of it on the property.

Was thinking how lovely it would look indoors in a casual wildflower vase arrangement, but can't seem to find any info on its toxicity. It doesn't appear on pet toxic plants lists or pet nontoxic plant lists. Since my cats often sample my flower arrangements, wouldn't want to poison anyone.

I don't think it's poisonous. I ordered a few and placed them on my counter for a bit before I planted them and my cats and one dog had a field day while I was at work and gnawed on them and all they did was barf up plant parts all over the house.

I have cats and yes... they walk on my countertops. Try as I might, if there is something up there that interests them such as nice tasty greens... they will go up there and lounge around. I used to use a spray bottle filled with water to deter them but gave up. I was outnumbered.

Lol - Equilibrium, don't you just love how pets - especially cats - consider all indoor plant life their own personal salad bar??

That's why I keep all of my Neps and Orchids in one bathroom with the doors shut. My little pretties here have uprooted whole little rooted Neps and taken off with them for parts unknown in the house. I just love finding a leafless dead Nep all crunchy in between the cushions to the couch. Cats are special aren't they.

Don't dig up your "dead" green dragons, Lauren! They might have just gone into an early dormancy. But I will send you some seeds anyway. The Jack in the Pulpits you sent to me went dormant early but I am confident they will emerge next spring.
What is a Nep???
We have cats in the house, too. Only one of them is a pesky plant nibbler. We constructed a couple of cat doors to close off the kitchen and dining areas but they are usually allowed in anyway! The many joys of living with furballs....

A Nep is a Nepenthes. They're not poisonous. Evidently the cats go bonkers over them though because they are always sticking their paws under the doors to that bathroom and trying to sneak in when we go in and out. The cats literally uproot the Neps and take off with them and the cats are faster than me.

We have furball doors in our house now too. They go down to the basement where all the cat litter boxes are. We had no choice because we have one dog that was going down there and eating turds out of the litter boxes. That dog would come upstairs and have cat litter stuck between teeth. I have no idea why this dog does this because we feed professional grades of feed here. Totally gross.

Oh my gosh, I forgot I sent you those whole plants. Don't panic on those. They shock when transplanted sometimes and they do come back the next year. One thing though, those are more of a spring ephemeral and they do die back.

The Green Dragons I bought as plugs. I had either 3 or 6 of them. They were too small to make it and the hose didn't reach to where they were planted down by a little creek. This is the first year the creek went dry in July. Never saw that happen before but then again we hadn't had any rain since May 11th by July. I think the Green Dragon are history because they went into their early crispy brown dormancy back in early June but I don't dig anything up like that just in case.

Okay, Nepenthes...Pitcher Plant. I bet those are pricey and it really would be upsetting to see that the cats had demolished them.
I can't believe a dog could be so gross as to eat from the cat's litter boxes...but at least you have a basement for them... we do not have a basement, so we struggle along with the litter box in the laundry room.
So now I am jealous.

Yes, the Neps can be a little pricy. But once they start taking off, you can generally make more plants via cuttings if you want.

Awww, don't be jealous about my dog. I'll send mine to you for a trial period or you can get one just like him for yourself. My vet claims there are a lot of dogs out there that do this. Generally some sort of a mineral or vitamin deficiency. Disgusting nonetheless.

Gee, I thought ALL dogs enjoyed "kitty snacks".

My litter boxes have to be kept in gated rooms that only the cats can get into because of that delightful doggy habit.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeew gross, "Kitty snacks".

Don't you just love it when they come and rest their head in your lap and nudge you and slimy gravel falls out of their loose lips? Better yet is when they get those shoe string hangers of saliva out of each side of their mouth and there are "remnants" of them having rooted around in the litter box. We made a cat door down to the basement and keep the door shut now. Works great for Mastiffs and Great Danes because there is no way no how they can squeeze their flesh loaf bodies through the cat door to get to the "Kitty snacks" any more. Not for lack of trying though mind you. I came up the stairs once from doing laundry and saw a whole sideways head looking down at me through the hole in the door. Pretty hysterical actually.

Let's face it, dogs can be pretty darn disgusting at times and cats are... well... cats are cats and they do what they want.

Equilibrium - what a mental picture I'm getting; you should write children's books - lol!!

While I adore large dogs, I draw the line at the ones that drool. Even without "kitty snacks" that's just a major gagfest for me.

Well, the problem is that when we go to the animal shelter to bring home a pet and have visions of coming home with a nice lab or golden retriever mix... they always steer us to those breeds because they cost too much to feed, people are afraid of them, they look like they need a lot of space (not true), and because those are usually the first to get the needle because people don't adopt them and dogrun space is a precious commodity. Last time there was a twofor fire sale going on. We couldn't say no. These dogs are so darn ugly they are sort of cute...even with hangers. We needed three, honest! No offense to what I am about to say but we sure don't get a lot of door to door salesmen compared to our neighbors. Think it could be the sign at the end of our driveway that says, "Solictors and Jehovah's Witnesses Welcome" followed by, "Dog Food Is Expensive"? There was another joke sign out there but somebody stole it that said, "Our dogs can make it to the lot line in 4 seconds, can you?" You should have seen the reaction of some people reading those signs. They'd look around very anxiously and leave glancing nervously over their shoulders. Hmmm, wonder what their first clue was that we had bigguns here? Could it be the cow pie sized dog poops in the yard that couldn't possibly have come from a tea cup poodle? Some day I am going to get a pretty dog like a Collie. I've wanted one of those Lassie things for the longest time.

There's a few tricks to the hangers. Take up all water about a half hour before guests come. This way they don't take a drink and stand there with streams of water falling out of their faces onto the floors for guests to slip and fall in. Next trick is to hang a dishtowel under their necks and over their collars. This works great because when the dog goes to nuzzle your guest (what they are actually doing is ridding themselves of hangers on your guest's pant leg or shirt under the guise of being affectionate not so unlike kids with runny noses giving you hugs and wiping their snot all over the front of you rather than getting a tissue), the guest can reach down and dab at either side of their faces. Last but not least, warn all guests to run for cover if it looks as if one is going to shake its head. Hangers have been known to hit the ceiling as well as lighting fixtures and they really do hang. Nothing a little spritz of bleach water can't take care of.

The single greatest issue one has to deal with is not the hangers but when the dogs lean. These dogs like to be close and they will lean on you. 200+ lbs of muscular flesh loaves leaning on you can send the whole sofa backwards a few feet. How does one address this issue? One goes into the basement and drills up under the sofas and love seats and bolts them to the floor. This way when the doglette leans, your guests don't go flying backwards. See, no problemo! Chairs are a different story particularly when they are on ceramic. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, better than any ride at the amusement park when Fido decides he wants to lean and be close. My Mother In Law went flying once. You always get a warning though because they start backing up toward you or coming in sideways. Know the warning signs. Be prepared. Otherwise go and sit in the family room where the furniture is anchored.

I volunteer educating children on environmental issues... does that count for anything?

I knew there were some reasons why we didn't replace our dogs after they got old and died!
Plus, it seems they always liked to dig up the flowerbeds (or lay in them) and pull all the laundry off the clothesline (I used to hang out all the sheets to dry).
Through the years we have had 16 cats and dogs, but we are now down to 4 (2 inside and 2 outside). It is still a big problem to leave for a few days, let alone a regular vacation! But we love the little varmints.

We keep saying we won't replace but then they call us with some horrible story and we naturally go and take a look at what came in to the shelter and the rest is usually history.

My dogs don't dig up anything. Will small wonders never cease!

A white cat around here would make it all of one day before the coyotes ate it. I love white cats, something very classic about them.

Yes, he is a pretty boy. Someone just dropped him off here about 3 years ago. We have coyotes here as well. Because of that, we lock the cats in a nice comfy shed with a screen porch at night or when we are gone.
Their porch overlooks the creek, so it is very nice for them.