Monarda fistulosa is commonly called Horsemint, Wild Bergamot, and Bee Balm. As with many native plants found in the Rocky Mountains and Western Plains, it was used by Native Americans to treat a variety of ailments, from headaches to bronchitis. Even today it is used as a component in some herbal tea mixes, and the…
Category: Native Plants
Winter Watering in Wyoming and the High Plains
Last week we had three days in a row above 40 degrees F. With no snow cover, this was a perfect time to water shrubs, trees and perennials in the yard. The forecast for Central Wyoming for the first week of 2012 looks good for another opportunity for winter watering. In the high plains, winter…
Why I Don’t Use Ornamental Grasses
Over the last five years I’ve seen ornamental grasses go from being unique to common around my town. Most of the newer homes and businesses in my area of central Wyoming have some ornamental grasses. Even though I encourage friends to use grasses, and I was a fan from the start, I have shied away…
Wasn’t Poison Sumac After All
“It turns out the “poison sumac” (Rhus vernix) of my childhood, which I so diligently avoided, wasn’t poison sumac after all, although R. vernix does grow in Indiana.” This is from my reply to a comment from Steve at Portraits of Wildflowers. Steve reports Rhus trilobata grows in Texas, but Rhus lanceolata is more reliable…
Unique Color with Native Plant Scarlet Globemallow
Sometimes envisioning native plants in the home garden or landscape takes some imagination. That’s the case with Sphaeralcea coccinea, also called Desert Mallow, Cowboy’s Delight, and Scarlet Globemallow. This hardy little plant grows along gravel roads, in highway rights of way, and some of the driest habitats Wyoming has to offer, and folks, that is…
Rabbitbrush Native Shrub
Chrysothamnus, or Rabbit brush, is a common native shrub of Wyoming and much of the arid western US. Some of the species that I learned as Chrysothamnus are now in the genus Ericameria. The major difference being Ericameria is covered with tomentum, or a felt like covering of tangled hairs. Wyoming has four species of…
Wyoming Fall Colors Include Rhus
The fall colors of Wyoming are subtle, not like the brilliantly brushed hardwood forests of the eastern US. The shades of autumn in the Rockies are more muted with the dark olive evergreens, purple-grey slates, and reddish sandstones providing the back drop for pockets of glowing aspen and roadside ribbons of burning rabbitbrush. The fall…
Busy as a Bee
Late summer brought on that old familiar feeling. Bittersweet. Summer is almost over, and fall is on its way. Autumn may very well be the most beautiful season in Wyoming. The wind quiets down. The nights cool. The skies are brilliantly, painfully, blue. Every sunny day (which is most of our autumn) is one more…
Pricklypear Cactus; Look But Don’t Touch
Lewis probably said it best when he referred to Pricklypear as “one of the beauties as well as the greatest pests of the plains.”1 I usually see it with a pale yellow bloom, so this beautiful apricot colored version caught my attention. Opuntia polyacantha, Prickly Pear cactus, or Plains Pricklypear, is a common plant of…
Natural Variation: The Stuff of Plant Breeding
It’s the natural variation already present in native plants which allows plant breeders to offer cultivars, selections, and varieties to the home gardener. When I consider purchasing plants billed as ‘native’ I narrow my choices to selections of species naturally occurring in my area. Generally, a selection is propagated by selecting plants grown from ‘wild’…
Wyoming Butterfly
As I drove past the Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus), a common native plant of the western United States, I saw it was covered with these medium sized orange-brown butterflies. First we had to remember how to tell a butterfly from a moth. The overlapping wings and bulb ended antennae are indicative of butterflies, along with the…
Wyoming Life 