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Posted by New Hampshire Garden Solutions

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The title of this post should be “By several ponds” but that didn’t sound right. Though I have done posts about what I’ve found at a single pond in the past I’ve learned that it doesn’t really matter what pond you visit. If you live in New Hampshire you’ll find pretty much the same things at any pond in your area. Granted, some ponds have orchids and pitcher plants along their shorelines but most don’t, so let’s just say in general a pond is a pond. I’m pointing this out because I don’t want you to think you have to go to any certain pond to see all the things in this post. Any pond should do.

Most ponds in this area have pickerel weed growing in the shallow water along their banks. I love to see their beautiful flowers, and all the insects and fish that hide among them are amazing. I once stumbled upon a fisherman who had just caught a pickerel and when I asked him where the fish had struck he pointed and said it had been hiding in the pickerel weeds off shore. That was perfect, because this plant gets its name from that fish.

American burr reed is liable to be found right next to the pickerel weeds, or at least not too far away. Both are fairly common and I’ve learned to stand near them and just watch because many insects use them, especially the leaves, for various purposes. The tiny white bits seen here protruding from the spherical flower heads are this plant’s flowers. Later on ducks and other waterfowl will eat the seeds.

Dragonflies will perch on pond plants like pickerel weed, bur reed, and the cattails seen here, lying in wait for prey. That’s just what this male widow skimmer was doing one afternoon. Both males and females love to hang off foliage in the bright, late afternoon sunshine and that’s the first place I look when I visit a pond. Looking for them on cloudy days often isn’t very productive.

Of course damselflies also perch on pond plant foliage. On this day I found what I believe was a female eastern forktail eating a smaller cousin of hers. Dragonflies do the same thing. Is it any wonder they hide among the foliage? In nature everything gets eaten.

Quite often I visit certain ponds because of the plant life I know I’ll find there. This pond on this day was full of fragrant white waterlilies all in bloom. It’s a beautiful scene and I go to see it often.

A little female or immature male red wing blackbird danced on the waterlily leaves one day. These birds are very common at most ponds in this area but you don’t often find females willing to pose. They nest down in the cattails where they can’t be easily seen and to see one doing this is unusual.

Six spotted fishing spiders can literally walk on water, and this one walked out and waited on a waterlily leaf for a tasty morsel to come along. If I could have held this one in the palm of my hand it would have filled it.

Those morsels fishing spiders wait for could be anything, including this common blue damselfly. Damselflies also like to perch on waterlily leaves and wait for food to come along but sometimes by doing so, they become the food.

One day as I walked along beside a pond the cattails I was walking beside began shaking violently, and then one of them disappeared under water. Less than a minute later up popped this little muskrat, eating the cattail heart. It stayed above water and ate the whole thing before finally diving. It all happened so fast it seemed like there were a thousand things to process at once but luckily I had sense enough to get photos. This was a small muskrat, not a baby but not an adult either. I’d have to say it was more teenager than anything. Its claws hadn’t fully developed and its head wasn’t even as big as the waterlily leaves that surrounded it. In fact it acted like a teenager, eyeing me while it munched on cattail heart. I could almost hear it saying “ha ha, you can’t catch me.”

An adult beaver can easily weigh 40 pounds but an adult muskrat averages 4-5 pounds, so once you get used to seeing them regularly the difference becomes fairly obvious. Muskrats are burrowing animals and they use their front claws for digging. An adult muskrat’s claws are quite long, very sharp, and dark colored, not like what we see here. That’s why I think this one was quite young.

When muskrats eat cattails they go for the white tender heart of the plant and leave all the tougher leaves and stems floating on the surface. This particular pond drained excess water through a culvert and there were screens over the culvert’s entrance. All the debris left by the muskrats began to collect on the screens and slow the drainage so when we had all the heavy rains of spring it began to be a problem. Someone came along and cleaned the debris from the culvert screens at some point and the water level began to drop and it kept dropping until there was enough of a shoreline for this green heron to hunt from. That’s just what it was doing this day when it let me stand and watch. This pond is full of frogs and must have a billion tadpoles in it. Or it did have before the heron came along. The bird is nesting nearby now.

This shot also shows the kind of debris that is left behind by muskrats and other animals, and that’s what plugged up the culvert. It wasn’t a beaver dam by any stretch, but it was enough to dramatically slow drainage.When the water level drops at this time of year the yellow flowers of bladderwort suddenly appear from the mud, and this year there are thousands of them blooming.

In another spot I saw a female wood duck. It was small enough to make me wonder if it wasn’t a duckling rather than an adult. That bladderwort over on the right shows it was swimming in very shallow water. Going by the plant’s stem I’d guess no more than three or four inches deep. The little duck was probably doing as much walking as it was swimming.

In the same place I saw the wood duck big bluestem grass was blooming. Those tiny dangling yellow bits are the plant’s male flowers. The female flowers are even smaller white wisps, too small to be seen clearly here.

I also saw the first twelve spotted skimmer dragonflies of the year where the wood duck swam. These dragonflies are large, easy to see and they’ll sit still occasionally, so that makes them perfect for anyone who likes to watch dragonflies. With a twelve spotted skimmer you get to twelve by counting the dark spots, not the white ones.

I’m seeing a lot of pondhawk dragonflies this year as well. Males like this one can be easily mistaken for blue dashers if you don’t happen to spot the green on their abdomen.

This shot of a female pondhawk dragonfly is special to me because it’s only the second usable photo of a dragonfly that I’ve been able to get using a phone camera. The female pondhawk is brightly colored and bigger than the male and she sat perfectly still while I slowly maneuvered the phone near enough to get the shot. Though I expected her to fly at any moment this dragonfly never did fly off, so I silently thanked her for being so patient with me and let her be.

I’m not the only one watching for dragonflies; there are always kingbirds in the trees at this time of year. If you happen to be a dragonfly that is spotted by one of these birds, your work here is done. Once this bird gets on the trail of an insect it does not give up. I’ve seen them do some fantastic acrobatics, and they can even hover. I’ve also seen them just recently swoop in and snatch up a dragonfly that I was all ready to take a photo of. Thanks kingbird.

I’ve never seen a kingbird catch and eat a butterfly but I’d guess that they must. This mourning cloak sipping from a milkweed blossom was just a few yards from the kingbird’s tree in that previous photo, so it was apparently its lucky day. Mourning cloaks overwinter and are often seen in early spring but I was surprised to see this one when milkweeds were blooming. They mate quite early in the year though, so this one might have been the result of a months ago meeting of a male and female.

I see lots of butterflies like this eastern tiger swallowtail with wing pieces missing, so I know that birds do go after them. I can’t imagine any butterfly being fast enough to outrun a kingbird but I suppose it probably happens. I’ve learned that, like animals and birds, the best place to see butterflies is near water. This one was probing the gravel in the parking area of the pond in that first photo.

I also see more white and red admiral butterflies with torn wings than other species, but this white admiral was perfect. This is one of our most beautiful butterflies, in my opinion. Colorful and large enough to be seen from a distance. They frequent forests I know because that’s where I usually find them, but I don’t know if that makes them more or less prone to bird encounters.

The little wood satyr is one of my favorite butterflies, probably because I rarely see them. When I do see them they see me and fly a few yards away and rest in the grass. This one did just that for about a half hour before I could get a few poor shots of it. This one shows the identifying features in enough detail so maybe you’ll know when you see one. To give you a sense of scale, those are wild strawberry leaves behind it and vetch leaves under it. It’s kind of a medium size butterfly I’d say, but very hard to get a clear shot of.

I’m seeing fewer invasive yellow irises this year even though I saw lots of big seed pods on last year’s plants. I doubt fewer plants is because of anything mankind has done in this area. I think it has to do with the amazing amounts of rain we had this spring. All that rain kept the water levels in rivers and streams high for at least two months and it’s easy to see the after effects of that, especially in the aquatic plants. From what I’ve seen pickerel weed and cattail numbers are down as well. I also haven’t seen anywhere near the numbers of dragonfly exoskeletons on these plants that I did last year.

Sometimes you’ll see a man-made berm or dam near a pond that is covered with crown vetch plants. Though invasive, these plants are great at keeping soil in place, so you often find them used on hillsides beside roads and highways or near ponds. Anywhere you don’t want land to slide or be washed away, these plants are called for. And the bonus is, they’re beautiful. They’re one of my favorite weeds. Bumblebees love the flowers that are in the pea / bean family of legumes.

Swamp roses (Rosa palustris) are blooming. They aren’t very big but they’re pretty and they’re always surprising because they grow in places you’d never expect to see a rose. This is a rose that is very tolerant of wet ground and I know that the few blooming plants that grow in this spot were almost entirely underwater when the stream they grow near flooded in the spring. You can buy cultivars (Cultivated Varieties) of this rose and plant them in wet areas of your yard if you like native roses. They might look delicate but they’re nearly indestructible.

Swamp milkweed has just come into bloom. This is in my opinion our most beautiful native milkweed, worthy of any garden but never seen in one by me. The orange flowered milkweed called butterfly weed is also said to be native but I’ve never found it outside of gardens. We’re lucky to have many native milkweeds and also the dogbanes, which are in the milkweed family

One day I stood on a slight rise above a spit of land jutting out into a pool. This was a small peninsula with water on each side and in the water closest to where I stood there was a commotion going on, with much splashing and rippling. It was a common grackle, taking a bath. When it was finished this plain black bird climbed up onto this beaver stump and just blossomed like a flower, right before my eyes. I have no other way to describe it. All of the sudden there was color all over its body. I’ve seen other birds with iridescent feathers, mallards for instance, but I’ve never seen color suddenly appear like it did on this bird. It was like it flipped a switch and lit itself up like a Christmas tree. Now that I know how beautiful these birds truly are I doubt that I’ll ever see a common grackle in the same way again.

Speaking of iridescence, this damselfly wasn’t going to be outdone. Damselflies like to perch, and that’s what this elegant spreadwing was doing when I saw it in a nearby bush. It’s a beautiful thing with amazing metallic colors all over it. I’m not sure I’ve seen one before but I’d love to see one again so I could get a better shot. Most damselflies hold their wings together over the length of their bodies but spreadwings do just what their name suggests. They like to spread out.

Years ago another blogger and I took his beautiful newly built wooden canoe into a beaver pond. We had talked back and forth in blog comments about where he could take this canoe he had spent so many hours building and I said “I know just the place.” I told him I had chosen this particular pond because I knew it must have orchids in it. “I can just feel it” I told him, “all the signs are there.” Well, it turned out the water was only about six inches deep and I shuddered every time that beautiful canoe slid over a stump or rock. And we never did see any orchids. So one day last week, now about ten years later, I walked down the road near the pond and there were countless rose pagonia orchids, so close I could get photos with a cell phone. This is one of our most beautiful native orchids and I was stunned to be so close to them. Isn’t nature a jokester I thought as I remembered that canoe trip ten years ago. Jim, if you’re reading this here are the orchids I said I knew must be growing in that pond. Sorry it took so long to find them!

I hope this post shows that water is life. If you’d like to see life in action just go to your local pond and wait. You won’t have to wait long. Once the critters get used to your being there the place will hum with activity. I’ve seen many people sitting in lawn chairs at this particular spot, all just watching life unfold.

I meant to do my work today, but a brown bird sang in the apple tree, and a butterfly flitted across the field, and all the leaves were calling. ~Richard le Gallienn

Thanks for coming by.

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Posted by New Hampshire Garden Solutions

https://nhgardensolutions.wordpress.com/2025/07/05/summer-wildflowers/

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The flowers of summer are starting to bloom and though most of this post will show those that like full sunshine some, like the native flowering raspberry seen here, are found in shade. It isn’t so much that they need shade, it’s more that they’ve learned to tolerate it and expand their range. One look at the big hand size, light gathering leaves and you can guess this plant’s story.

I wanted to use this shot to show the difference in color between the just opened buds and the older flowers, each a different shade of purple. Flowers that are fully opened are about an inch across if the plant is happy. Three quarters of an inch or less if not. The plant is called flowering raspberry because its fruit resembles a big raspberry. They’re about as big as the end of your thumb and from what I’ve tasted, fairly bland. It’s like drinking red colored water expecting it to taste like raspberry and finding it tastes like plain water instead. As can be seen here, the spherical buds are very hairy. The leaves are also hairy.

Northern Catalpa is a native tree with large heart shaped leaves and huge masses of beautiful white orchid like flowers in mid-June. The flowers will be replaced by long seed pods that made my friends and I call them “string bean trees” when I was in grade school. I see lots of catalpa trees planted far too close to houses and streets. They are large and need lots of room and because they are a very messy tree, dropping leaves, flowers and seedpods almost year round, I’d give them a place off in the distance at the edge of the yard where I could just mow all the debris. Native Americans used above ground parts of the tree medicinally but its roots are very toxic.

Yellow goat’s beard like to grow in sunny open meadows in this area. Its bright yellow flowers are large at about two inches wide. They open in early morning and close near midday, which gives them the name “Jack go to bed at noon.” They are said to be invasive but I always feel fortunate to find them because they’re scarce here. As can be seen here they are an insect magnet.

Yellow goat’s beard buds always remind me of okra pods. They’re blue green and maybe three inches long. Another name for the plant is salsify but it should not be confused with the vegetable called salsify, which is usually the root of the purple salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius). Yellow goat’s beard has large spherical seedheads that look much like dandelion seedheads.

I’ve watched hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium) transition from the pure white flowers I saw as a boy to the bi-color pink and white blooms I see today. Why this happened is a mystery but if I had to guess I’d say it was because insects are more attracted to the bi-color blossoms, and this increases pollination chances. It’s always about continuation of the species.

Nature doesn’t waste energy and evolving a new flower color must take a lot of energy, so it has to be beneficial to the plant. Though I have no scientific proof it appears that the transition from mono-color to bi-color in this area is almost complete because it has become close to impossible to find pure white flowers now. It’s interesting to think that I might have witnessed 60 years of evolution. It went very slowly, almost imperceptible unless you paid attention to this weed.

People tend to like multiflora roses (Rosa multiflora) because they smell nice and the 1/2 to one inch white flowers cover the plant. But multiflora roses are highly invasive. Though they look like a climber they don’t twine or have tendrils. Their method is to grow new shoots as high and as straight as possible. Then gravity takes over and the new shoots fall onto the surrounding shrubs and trees. New shoots will grow from that shoot and the process repeats itself again and again. I’ve seen them 30 feet into a tree, and they didn’t climb an inch of it. The reason they’re such a pest is their thorns, which form an impenetrable barrier to anything but the smallest animals, like rabbits and woodchucks. To be rid of them you have crawl under them, cut off all the shoots and dig the roots, which depending on the plant could easily take half a day. And there are many thousands of them, just within Keene’s town limits.

Though there are red campion flowers I believe these ones that grow in a local park are pink variations of the white flowered plant. It gets very confusing with campions. A white flowered plant can have pink flowers and a red flowered plant can have white flowers. True red campion likes soil with a lot of lime in it and that’s as rare as hen’s teeth in this part of the state. My method is to just ignore all that and enjoy what I see since I don’t have to explain any of it to a botany class.

One of my favorite weeds is sulfur cinquefoil. I like its butter yellow heart shaped petals, each with a deeper yellow or sometimes orange color at its base. When all five petals come together they form a star in the center. This is a very rough looking, hairy plant that was originally introduced from Europe. It grows in unused pastures and along roadsides but it is considered a noxious weed in some areas because it out competes grasses.

Orange is a color that’s very hard to find in nature in this part of the world, and that is what makes orange hawkweed so special. I might run into it once each summer if I’m lucky and even then only two or three plants. It’s quite beautiful and seems to like old pastures and undisturbed soil.

A week or so ago I dreamed that I had taken a photo of something so mind blowingly beautiful I couldn’t even believe it was real. But of course when I woke up I couldn’t remember what it was. For quite some time I thought about what it might have been and eventually came to the conclusion that it must have been life itself. No matter where you point your camera all you see is the beauty of life. Take a photo underwater and there it is. On a mountaintop, there it is. On a busy city sidewalk, there it is. Put a grain of sand under a microscope and there it is. Watch the swirling ammonia clouds on Jupiter and there it is. Life, beautiful life, all different yet all the same, coming at you from all sides, all of it having the same spark of energy or divinity or whatever you choose to call it that makes it all so beautiful. It is indeed mind blowing, and if you can’t believe that just look at the little blue toadflax above. Nobody pays it any attention. People step on it and drive over it. They call it a weed but there it is; a thing of unbelievable beauty, there for you to see. And all things are like that, everywhere you look. Don’t turn away from it, embrace it. Love it. Let it fill you to bursting until you need to sing. Let yourself fall in love with this beauty that is life.

Stitchwort is one of the lowly chickweeds. It was originally given the name Stellaria, which means star. See how beautifully they shine there in the tall grass at the edge of the path, just like tiny stars. At one time if you had a stitch in your side you used stitchwort to be rid of it.

The beauty of red sandspurry is hidden by its tiny size. Easily hidden behind a pea, it needs magnification if we are to see it in all its glory.

A few years ago I slipped a penny under a red sandspurry to give you an idea of scale but even this is not true because the blossom wasn’t touching the penny. This flower is actually about the size of Abe Lincolns ear. Look for them growing in tiny bouquets in the sandy grass along road edges in June.

Spreading dogbane is in the milkweed family so if you pick it you’ll get sticky white latex all over you. The sap is toxic and animals won’t touch it but several kinds of insects visit the small, lily of the valley shaped flowers. Though I find it growing in full sun the plant can take some shade and I often find it growing along trails through the woods. The bark from the stems of dogbanes produces tough fibers that Native Americans pounded and made a strong thread from. It was used to make nets for hunting rabbits, among other things. What looks like whiteish dust on the leaves was actually morning dew.

The meaning of the word “bane” is “a cause of great distress or annoyance.” So dog bane means you should keep your dog from eating it.

Spreading dogbane flowers are quite pretty with their pink candy stripes inside each little porcelain white bell. They’re also pleasantly fragrant. Monarch and other butterflies drink the nectar but I rarely see butterflies on them. You’re more apt to find an ant or two tucked down in the blossoms. Though it is an herbaceous perennial spreading dogbane’s growth habit makes it look like a 3 foot tall shrub

Ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) wants what it wants and needs what it needs, and that’s why I only see it once in a blue moon. It’s almost like an orchid in the way it appears and disappears. Often when I go back to a place I’ve seen it previously there won’t be any sign of it, and that’s what makes each encounter so special. I found this one growing under some shrubs along a rail trail, and that day you could have knocked me over with a feather. Its beauty lies in its nonconformity.

Red clover is having a great year and I’m glad to be seeing it everywhere. I’ve told the story of my encounter with red clover and how it changed me enough times to not feel the need to tell it again. I will say that if you know it (or any other plant) as a hated weed just look a little closer and let it speak to you. You too may one day exclaim “I once was blind but now I see.”

When I wasn’t too far out of my teens I went to work for a wise old nurseryman who taught me so many things it would be impossible to ever list them all. We grew many plants from seed but we also had a large perennial garden, and when a customer walked through it and liked a certain plant I would dig it up and pot it for them on the spot or if the plant was big enough, divide it up and sell them half. In that perennial garden working with all those plants was when I first met the plant in the above photo which my mentor called “peach leaved bluebells.” It’s in the campanula family and is a truly beautiful thing that will spread and come back year after year. I’ve been thinking about the plants I have now, and I think they must have all come from a plant I got 50+ years ago from that very same perennial garden.

Heal all is also called self heal and if you look up what it was used for medicinally you find that it was used to heal just about any disease you can name, and that’s how it came by its common names. I find it can also heal your outlook. I call them nature’s cheerleaders because the little mouth shaped flowers are always yelling Yay! to life. These plants say you don’t need a reason to be happy; you just be happy and yell Yay! to life.

I like to show milkweed flowers when I can because though I find that people are more interested in the plants than they used to be due to the monarch butterfly dilemma, few people ever seem to look at the flowers. I’ve always found them to be quite pretty and I hope you do too.

Did you see the ants crawling all over that milkweed flower head in the previous shot? I didn’t check but I’d bet there were milkweed aphids on the plant. Ants love the sticky “honeydew” that aphids secrete and they will actually tend to the aphids and keep any predators from bothering them, much as we would a herd of sheep or cattle.

These native ants are called “Allegheny mound ants” and as the name suggests they live in mounds. These mounds are usually in sandy soil and can be quite large, but are almost invisible if you don’t know what to look for. The most common way people find them I think, is by stepping on them. You can be walking on hard ground and then all of the sudden it feels as if you’re standing in a pile of soft sawdust. It’s best to beat it out of there if that happens because these ants are very aggressive and they do bite. If they crawl up your pant leg, you probably won’t forget that day right away.

The square stems of motherwort show it to be in the mint family, and many plants in the mint family have been used medicinally for centuries. The ancient Greeks and Romans used motherwort medicinally and it is still used today to decrease nervous irritability and quiet the nervous system. There is supposed to be no better herb for strengthening and gladdening the heart, and it is sold in powdered and liquid form. I find it along roads and in fields. The tiny white, fuzzy flowers grow in whorls around the stem in the leaf axils.

A close look at the flowers of motherwort shows that they resemble tiny orchids. Their lower lip is divided or folded into three and has many purple spots which lead insects into the tube, where they find the nectar. Purple-tipped stamens and a white style arch along the inside of the hairy upper lip, ready to bump the back of the insect when it backs out. Both bumblebees and honeybees are said to visit the flowers, which can also be pink or purple. The name motherwort comes from the plant’s long history of use in childbirth, and in treating female disorders.

If there is a better name for a plant than fawn’s breath, I haven’t heard it. Another name for the plant is bowman’s root but I like the idea of the flowers dancing in the slightest breeze, one even as gentle as the breath of a fawn. This native plant does well in shade and animals won’t touch it. Other names for it include American ipecac and Indian physic, so maybe that’s why deer and other animals leave it alone. Native Americans used the powdered root as a laxative.

The big flat, off white flowerheads of elderberry can be seen just about everywhere now along rivers and streams and next to ponds. It won’t be long before each tiny blossom is replaced by a shiny black berry. It looks like the birds will continue to eat well. Elderberries always remind me of an old Italian woman who lived across the street and told me stories when I was a boy about making elderberry wine. She didn’t know it but she got me thinking about how plants are used, and helped me see how nature and mankind are inseparable.

Native St. John’s wort is possibly the easiest of any of the summer wildflowers to identify. It’s three foot tall stems, many stamens, and the black spots on the petals all help with that. The leaves have small translucent glands that make them appear pierced when held up to the light, which is why they have “perforatum” in their scientific name. It’s a plant that has been used medicinally for centuries. I’ve read that the black dots on the petals and sometimes on the leaves as well are small sacs filled with essential oils. Native Americans used the plant medicinally to treat wounds, as a cough medicine, and for many other ailments. Theses days it is used to treat depression in homeopathic medicine

Native blue star (Amsonia) is a plant that people seem to either love or hate. Its flowers are numerous and quite pretty but its three foot tall foliage takes up quite a lot of space. And it can double in size and take over a space if you don’t keep an eye on it. I’ve watched it do just that in a local public garden. The plant is in the milkweed / dogbane family. It’s a plant that I would advise people to go and meet in person before they decide to use it. Actually it’s a good idea to do that with most plants. The most common mistake I saw as a gardener was people planting plants, shrubs and trees far too closely together. If you go and see a fully grown plant it will give you a better idea of spacing when planting.

I thought I might get through June without seeing black eyed Susans but there they were. It isn’t that I don’t like them, it’s just that I’ve always thought of them as a fall flower and sometimes I see them even before the official start of summer. “Don’t rush it” is what I always think when I see them so early.

I can’t give you fireworks but I can give you tall meadow rue, the fireworks of the plant world, always in bloom for July 4th. In optimum conditions this plant can easily reach seven feet tall, and that’s how it comes by its common name. It’s leaves resemble those of columbine and in early spring many are fooled by it into thinking they’ve found wild columbine. Look for it in wet places like ditches, in sun or shade. Plants in full sun will be the tallest.

We must not bind our hearts to the things of the world; no matter how beautiful they are or how much pleasure they give us. Our hearts must soar in the heavens for us to be truly the humans we were meant to be. ~Aleksandra Layland

Thanks for stopping in. Have a nice holiday weekend.

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