Golden Ragwort – Tendrils

Such great fortune to have Mother Nature as my landscape architect up here in the mountains. She provides me with such wondrous plants to enjoy. Like native Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea). I just have to help her out with things such as the removal of exotic species invasives. Which I have to admit is not at all a small price.

While reestablishing a long abandoned trail in the woods I’ve come upon an impressive expanse of Golden Ragwort. Needing to get from one side of it to the other I found myself apologizing to the plants I was tiptoeing across. I can only imagine the wonderful sight they will be when they are in bloom.

Right now they’re in bud. Quite fancy, even at this early stage. They’ll mature from a deep rich purple to a yummy luminous yellow. Those yellow blooms perched upon flowering stalks perhaps as much as two feet tall.

If you’d like to plant Golden Ragwort in your formal garden it grows well in mesic to wet soils in sunny to shady locations. It’s a plant that will outcompete many weeds that will show up and I wouldn’t suggest it be in a garden with bashful plants who will be lost in the shuffle.

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Here in the Blue Ridge depending on your elevation you’ll be seeing Rue Anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides) beginning to bloom around the middle of April.

This spring ephemeral is native to deciduous woodlands of eastern North America. So small, you must really look for them along the trail. They grow to only four to eight inches high.

Also known as Windflower, the flower’s thin stems give way to their waving in the tiniest breeze.

The flower itself has no actual petals, but is a circle of white or pink sepals with a dense cluster of small green pistils in the center. Those pistils are in turn surrounded by stamens with white filaments and soft yellow anthers. In summer each of the blooms are replaced by four to fifteen pale green turning to dark brown achenes, which is a fruit containing a single seed.

In May, trailside with another native flower, Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea).

And in the middle of August as things begin to shut down, take a rest, slow down and recharge for next spring.