Pretty Wild Things

Ok, I didn’t actually plant fleabane, but so what! It’s here, it’s blooming and it blends beautifully with the orange daylilies.

There is a long list of wild flowers that earned their rightful spot into the flower border, many of which have been bequeathed to us as components of the vintage flower garden: dame’s rocket, a delicate flower that grows freely in the dappled shade of large clearings, milkweed, a perennial that not only looks great with no care, but is the exclusive breeding ground of monarch butterflies, and yarrow, whose scented and highly textured foliage and large inflorescences have made it a staple of the summer garden.

For more unusual designs, try bird’s foot trefoil, a charming plant whose absolutely stunning yellow flowers are the informal harbingers of summer, because they bloom around the time of the solstice, or tall bell flowers, with their unruly spikes of blue flowers sprouting out in all directions.

Many of the inhabitants of the sunny border have their origins in the open prairie, where their ancestors still grow wild - ox-eye daisies, cone flowers, poppies, scabiosa, purple thistles, chamomile.

If you really appreciate drama in the garden, try mullein, a medicinal herb with the bearing of ancient royalty. It stands eight foot tall, displaying tall and slender spikes of yellow flowers over thick mounds of velvety silver foliage like church steeples.