GRANDMA KNOWS BEST

By LADYBUG

Laura C Martin has dedicated her book to her grandchildren, and adopts a grandmotherly tone in the disclaimer.

Please use common sense before gathering or coming into contact with plants that may cause an allergic reaction and do not ingest anything that you have not definitively identified as non-toxic.

With that out of the way, the botanist and botanical illustrator gets down to the business of sharing her unique perspective and her love for wildflowers inherited from her mother, also a wildflower enthusiast.

The beautiful, whimsical sketches are accompanied by information on bloom times, habitat and range, conservation, wildlife partners, traits in the garden and medicinal use as well as fun facts about each.

For instance, I learn that Black-eyed Susans (I know them as brown-eyed Susans) or Rudbeckia Hirta are named after Swedish botanist Olof Rudbeck who taught botany to the “father of modern botany”, Carolus Linnaeus.

While I know that asters, purple coneflowers, Joe Pye Weed, yarrow, yucca or wild strawberries with the pretty pink flowers and milkweed are native plants, I learn more about their cultivation and medicinal uses.

Smoke from burned aster leaves and flowers was inhaled by several American Indian tribes to treat mental illness, nose bleeds, headaches and congestion and was sometimes included with other herbs for smudging and in sweat lodges.

And I am delighted to see other plants in my garden listed as bonafide wildflowers. Among them, larkspur, monkshood, iris and lupins.

No wonder my coreopsis does so well – it’s not a fussy nursery-bred plant but a hardy wildflower.

The genus name comes from two Greek words, koris (bedbug) and opsis (resembles or looks like), because the seeds were thought to look like bedbugs.

Having read that, I can’t get the image out of my mind and will forever see the generous self-seeder in a different light!

Solomon’s Seal, another favourite, is also a wildflower.

King Solomon was said to have been knowledgeable about medicinal plants and put his “seal of approval” on this plant.

As are bee balm and liatris. Or the beautiful baptisia australis. I’d have known it’s a wildflower if I had paid attention to the fact that it’s otherwise known as blue wild indigo.

Also, I never thought of forget-me-nots or violets as wildflowers, but the way they happily make themselves at home in every nook and corner of my garden should have been a giveaway.

Forget-me-nots played a small role in English history. In 1398 King Richard ll, feeling threatened by Henry of Lancaster, banned him from England. Henry and his followers adopted this blossom as their symbol, promising to return and take the throne. Eventually, he succeeded and became Henry lV.

But seeing passionflower listed as a wildflower comes as a surprise. I think of mine as an exotic tropical, pampered indoors in winter. I learn, instead, that it’s a perennial that will do well with four hours of sun. Dividing the potted plant I have, or trying to root a cutting is now on my garden to-do list!

Martin also delves into the what does ‘native’ really mean? debate.

Many native plants have now been hybridized to offer gardeners a wider variety of colour and bloom. But once a species has been genetically altered, is it really still a native plant? For some people, it’s important to only grow plants that are as genetically close as possible to those that grew there before the arrival of Europeans in North America. Other will welcome the new, perhaps more colourful and bigger, varieties now available.

And she offers new and creative ideas to enjoy flowers with children. Including ones for printmaking and a flower candy bark.

Lovely! And yummy!