Years ago I saw Ladybird Johnson interviewed on T.V. She was talking about her efforts to beautify highways with wildflower plantings. In that interview she mentioned a term the 'wildflower experts' used. The "D.Y.C., ". Those letters stood for the " Damn Yellow Conglomerate"!!!!
I think her point was that, there are just too many yellow flowers to name individually and that the yellow flowers survive
when often others don't. She must have know what she was talking about, because
that certainly is true of my country road. From spring to fall my road is
abloom with yellow flowers, even though the graders continually disturb the
roadsides........
Many times just one species, and other times several will be
blooming at once.
Of course the Jonquil's start it all off early in the year, followed by Golden Pea, Honeysuckle, Butter and Eggs (my favorite, similar
to Snapdragons) Common Mullein, Missouri Primrose, Buttercup, Black-eyed Susans, Several varieties of wild sunflowers, Coreopsis and a
tall sticky spear type plant with large yellow blooms that I don't know the
name of. I only made the mistake of trying to pick it once! Right now it's Goldenrod bitterweed, and Bur Marigold, as you can see in these pictures!
Recently I saw a
lady on P.B.S. who lives near Dallas. She was a friend of Ladybirds and is
trying to keep her mission going. She's now over a 100 years old. Decades ago she
and her family donated a large acreage near Dallas to always be kept as a
Prairie Wildflower domain. She said she and Ladybird saw the "environmental
necessity of native plants." I wonder if any of our readers have ever
visited there?? If so I'd love it if you'd leave a comment below about it!
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment