Friends of the Wildflower Garden
A web of present and past events
These short articles are written to highlight connections of the plants, history and lore of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden with different time frames or outside connections. A web of intersections.
This month is the Friends Annual Meeting on September 25. We have more on bees: Nests of paper and the bee survey; also, our favorite aster, a tree for fall color and a historical Garden photo.
This Month
Friends annual meeting and guest speaker
Friends Annual Meeting and Guest Speaker
The Annual Friends of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Meeting and Lecture will be Wednesday, September 25, 2024 at 7PM
The Chalet Fireside Room, Theodore Wirth Regional Park (parking at the Golf Course lot).
All are Welcome.
Heather Holm will speak on Oaks, Fire, and Climate Change.
Friends Members please arrive 15 minutes early to vote for the Board of Directors. You will receive an email before the Meeting on the State of the Wildflower Garden and the Activity of the Friends. At the meeting there will be time for questions and concerns after the lecture.
Heather Holm is a pollinator conservationist and award-winning author of four books: Pollinators of Native Plants (2014), Bees (2017), Wasps (2021), and Common Native Bees of the Eastern United States (2022). Both Bees and Wasps have won multiple book awards including the American Horticultural Society Book Award (1018 and 2022 respectively). Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native pollinators and native plants. She participated in volunteer ecological landscape restoration projects.
The latest project is a 13-acre oak savanna restoration that will provide thriving habitat for pollinators, birds, mammals, and passive, nature-based opportunities for people.
Nests of Paper
Social wasps make nests that seem to be made of thin paper layers. Are they really paper?
Yes, you could call it “paper” as it is made from saliva-mixed chewed wood fibers collected by certain social wasps. Many wasp species build their nests underground or in cavities. A few species build in the open air. Sometimes these open air nests consist of a single comb in the shape of an upside down umbrella, frequently attached under the eaves of houses. These are made by paper wasps (Polistes spp.)
Another species, called yellowjackets (Vespula spp.), build large enclosed nests with numerous combs, reaching the size of basketballs, but more football in shape, such as the one shown here, usually found up in a tree. There is one opening into the hive in smaller nests, sometimes two in larger ones. All of these paper nest types are abandoned in the fall in our northern climes.
The large nest shown here was created by a yellowjacket. Baldfaced hornets (Dolichovespula maculata) also build such nests. Many web resources will tell you that yellowjacket nests are all underground, but that is not correct as the Vespula species build open air nests and are quite common around the Mpls/St.Paul area.
Nests are started by a single queen that overwintered. After she produces enough workers to continue the nest building, she only works to produce more offspring - 600 to 800 can inhabit a nest. Late in the season reproductive offspring are born that mate and create the reproductive queens that will find a place to overwinter and then begin their own nest the following year.
Yellowjackets feed on other insects, including mosquitoes, so all is not so bad in letting them live around you if the nest is not above your front door.
Bee Survey Completed
The second year the Wildflower Garden’s decennial bee survey wrapped up in August. Tabulation results will come out this Winter.
Did you take part?
The Wildflower Garden offered three opportunities for the public to participate via the Bumblebee Community Science Program. At the last session in early August participants ranged from the elderly to almost school age. After being shown how to trap a bumblebee, off you went to trap one and report back what kind of a flower the bee was found on (school age needed help with that).
The staff from the University of Minnesota Bee Lab sorted the trapped bees by flower type and then proceeded to identify them, followed by freedom for the bee. One must suppose that over an hour and one-half there is a chance the same bee was caught twice but maybe the chances are slim - it's a big garden space. Monarda was in full bloom everywhere so guess what plant had the most bees?
The purpose of doing this over a two-year period every 10 years is to track changes in the bee population and isolate some peculiarities. The Friends of the Wildflower Garden and the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden are jointly funding this work. Dr. Elaine Evans of the Bee Lab is managing the survey.
Below: Trapped bumblebees sorted by type of plant they were found on awaiting identification.
A Favorite Aster
Of the later asters to bloom, perhaps the most beloved by the early Curators of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden was the New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae).
Eloise Butler wrote "novae-angliae is truly a splendid plant - tall, late-blooming, with prodigal large flowers of many shades of rich blue and pink purple." It grew in Glenwood Park, so Eloise soon dug some up and brought them into her garden in 1910. From 1914 until her last year in 1932 she rarely missed a year planting them. Martha Crone, her successor, was equally occupied with their planting from 1935 through 1949.
The rose colored variety, the most stunning of the two colors, was also planted by both. Only 6 of our states do not report having the New England Aster and it only eludes the far northern Canadian Provinces. By tall, we mean up to seven feet on a robust specimen, unbranched until near the top when a profusion of growth produces clusters of flowers, each up to 1-½” wide. As you may suspect, the nursery trade has introduced many cultivars, including dwarf varieties, but none can exceed the natural colors, both of which are still found in the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden.
In 1915 Eloise wrote an essay on all the asters in her Garden, an essay which did triple duty: Entered into her historical record of the Garden, served as her 1915 annual report to the Board of Park Commissioners and then she had it published in the circular bulletin of her chapter of the Agassiz Association, the Gray Memorial Botanical Chapter.
Here is the link to our plant information sheet:
And, a link to our illustrated version of Eloise's essay
Below: A cluster of rose colored New England Aster on a single plant.
Brilliant Muscle-wood
Our observation of the trees that surround us reaches its peak in these northern climes in the autumn when color becomes something other than green, although there are 40 shades of that color.
It’s a futile exercise to rank trees for color, enjoy them all, but let me draw attention to just one that is not so commonplace in our local landscape but makes its mark all the same.
The American Hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana, is also known as the Blue Beech and as Muscle-wood. It is a short tree, typically 12 to 15 feet with a broad rounded crown and when the stars align just right, the fall color is outstanding - brilliant orange to red.
It was one of the first trees Eloise Butler transplanted into the new Wildflower Garden in June 1907, just two months after the Garden was formed. It was also planted in 1934 and in our present century by the current curator.
The name Muscle-wood has two meanings. First, the wood is very hard and strong, (think tool handles) but must be kept away from moisture. Strength and vulnerability are characteristics of all the Hornbeams. Second, the bark is thin, smooth, bluish-gray, and irregularly fluted resembling a muscular structure. Plant one if you have the opportunity.
More details and photos on our Muscle-wood information sheet.
Below: Muscle-wood leaves in fall color.
Historic Photo
Seventy-four years ago on September 24, 1950 Martha Crone made this Kodachrome of Fringed Gentians blooming in the Garden. Two years later this flower was chosen as the name and masthead image of the 1st issue of The Fringed Gentian™, the newsletter of the newly formed Friends of the Wildflower Garden. It is still in use today in volume 72.
Previous articles
August 2024 - Native flowers needed now
August 2024 - Friends meeting guest speaker announced.
August 2024 - New vistas around the Wildflower Garden
August 2024 - It's not an artichoke
August 2024 - Show-off Goldenrods
August 2024 - The pollinator meadow shines
July 2024 - Utility Building Construction
July 2024 - A Vagrant for the Garden.
July 2024 - How do Hummingbirds hover?
July 2024 - Catchflys and Campions
July 2024 - A Friend of the Wildflower Garden
June 2024 - Working near to Old Andrew
June 2024 - Greenery improves many things.
June 2024 - A Queen of Summer
June 2024 - Long-leaved Bluet - an historical Garden plant
June 2024 - The first fence - what a struggle it was
All selections published in 2024
All selections published in 2023