What's in the not-a-lawn? Not much, compared with other summers. Some years we have flowers, I've told visitors, and some years we have kittens.
These kittens have been unusually interested in the game of pulling down flowers. They like chasing things that fall out of trees and bushes. I've wondered whether they were hoping to find another cicada, which has not happened, but they like playing with dead flowers and broken twigs too.
They have been brought up as cuddly pets, and their favorite toy of all is a human, but they are discovering that humans can disappoint them. Sadly, now that they weigh about five pounds, they have had to learn that humans don't like for them to pounce on our heads. And I'm not even much fun when they try to scratch off one another's claw marks from the door. Winter is coming, I tell them, and the adult cats and I may need a door.
They are sweet, gentle little guys. They're just at that stage of learning, every week, that they have to be even more careful if they want to play with humans. Though Diego has always said it's unfair that he's expected to chase the ends of sticks when he has had the bright and innovative idea of grabbing the hands holding the other ends of the said sticks. The fact that he's never been allowed to play this game has not convinced him that it wouldn't be a great improvement.
Well, they are Borowiec's kittens, and Borowiec left them a lot of purrsonality as well as their silky "mixed" hair. Sometimes I think I'll miss them, and sometimes I wish their purrmanent families would come and get them now. But Pastel and Silver, neither of whom wants to have any more kittens this year, say they'd make good winter holiday presents.
Anyway, for the past few years, the not-a-lawn has been dominated by jewelweed. Some people prefer the scientific name, impatiens. The north side of the house is pretty close to water, because the house bestrides the slab of limestone that covers part of the artesian well. The water table underground is a few yards higher than the stream below the road.
Fair use of a photo from Shutterstock. Flowers are orange, shading from orange-yellow to orange-red. Their color and cone shape invite pollination by hummingbirds, though they can also be pollinated by some insects.
Photo from the USDA Forest Service. Jewelweed leaves have a blue undertone that can really stand out against plants like most grasses, which have a strong yellow undertone.
Photo from the Arkansas Native Plant Society, focussing on the shape of the leaves.
Jewelweed loves water. It doesn't seem terribly fussy about other factors affecting plants' quality of life, but it likes to sink its taproot into water. It's a real drama queen, in early summer when it's growing taller. It will turn up its leaves and look as if it;s dying any time it gets a few hours of full sunlight. It actually needs some full sunlight, but it will beg for extra water,
I encourage the jewelweed. Mother always liked it; her pale skin was sensitive to poison ivy and she was one of the people who believe jewelweed's soapy sap dissolves urushiol enough to reduce their reactions to contact with poison ivy. She had a terrible time with poison ivy anyway, most years; she said it used to be even worse. I'm not terribly sensitive to poison ivy and have never noticed jewelweed making a difference when I have been exposed. One never knows when Moher's relatives might decide to bring their pale sensitive skins out for a visit, and one wants to be able to offer whatever help one can.
It should be mentioned that jewelweed is not for everyone. The sap really does contain saponins, which means it works like mild soap dissolved in cold hard water. You don't get clouds of bubbles and scent, but it will, very gradually, dissolve grease and dirt. Many people who are sensitive to poison ivy find that it reduces the amount of urushiol that sinks into their skin and the amount of blistering they have. A few unlucky people are, however, allergic to jewelweed itself. They've been quoted as saying that their reactions to jewelweed sap, rubbed in and left on their skin, were worse than their usual reactions to casual cntact with poison ivy.
Most things that have been encouraged to grow around the Cat Sanctuary are pot herbs. Jewelweed is a power herb, though it's not a very powerful one. People do eat the young leaves in early spring, and live, but there just about have to be better leaves to eat in early spring. Jewelweed is full of oxalates.
Jewelweed is supposed to grow three to five feet tall, but something, maybe all the food scraps left out for the animals all these years, makes it tend to grow more exuberantly at the Cat Sanctuary. I'm still 5'4" and, before they start to bloom, most of my jewelweed plants are taller than I am. In a wet year they can reach eight feet. Which of course only makes them thirstier and more dramatic with their appeals for extra water.
It's worth it, though, in August, because jewelweed attracts hummingbirds. One year when the jewelweed was blooming I sat in the yard, talking to a visitor, and we counted seven hummingbirds pollinating the jewelweed all at the same time.
Well, this year the kittens had a good time pulling down jewelweed plants, and although the hummingbirds found flowers to pollinate, they complained. I am not making this up. Two of them flew close to my face, hovered, and pointed at the few surviving jewelweeds. Clearly they were saying, "What happened to all the richness we've found here in other years? How could you disappoint us so?"
The bright orange jewelweed flowers are always a pretty contrast to the bright blue dayflowers that bloom below them.
Photo by Asergeev. This is the "good," or native, dayflower, Commelina virginica.
Photo by the North Carolna Extension Gardeners. This is the "bad," or "invasive," dayflower, C. communis. Both flowers have three petals. Communis, which is bigger and brighter in real life, has a much smaller and paler third petal; it looks like just two blue petals. The other difference is that communis can grow quite aggressively in favorable conditions, while virginica is a modest little plant that will let itself be crowded out if you don't protect it.
Dayflower plants look like a sturdy kind of grass, They can be described as one or more huge sprawling plants with lots of little branches, or as clumps of plants that grow 6 to 12 inches above the ground from rhizomes that often lie above the ground. Leaves and roots of both species can be eaten if a person is hungry enough. The blue color can also be extracted from the petals and used in dye or paint, but it fades fast in light.
Dayflowers are literally beneath the attention of hummingbirds, but after a summer of kittens rolling on them and tearing them up, where hundreds of flowers have been, maybe half a dozen flowers were.
This year, because there were so few flowers altogether, the changeover was abrupt. Where there are lots of flowers, the transition usually involves a few days when more of one flower and fewer of the other can be seen. This year the last jewelweed flower fell the morning before the first goldenrod bloomed.
Photo from Gardening Know-How.
Everybody knows goldenrod. The interesting thing about it is the way this flower has gone from being blamed for allergy problems to being praised as a food or medicine. Like jewelweed, goldenrod contains saponins. However, goldenrod leaves don't have to be boiled in three changes of water to become digestible, and goldenrod flowers can be dried and brewed in tea. The leaves contain fibre and vitamins; the tea is used to discourage out-of-balance yeasts in the digestive system.
A few people really are allergic to goldenrod. They are more likely to have a skin rash after contact with the plant rather than asthma or hayfever. I believe most hayfever is caused by chemical sensitivities but it cn be mechanically triggered by pollen or dust of any kind. WebMD, however, says some people's respiratory allergies are still believed to be caused by genuine pollen allergies, but the pollen usually involved in autumn hayfever is ragweed.
The bottom layer of flowers that I usually see below my goldenrod are the ladies-thumbs. Ladies-thumb grass, sometimes called smartweed, is a pot herb n the buckwheat family. Its bloom and seeds usually appear at the top of the plant, about a foot off the ground, but it too can grow exuberantly at the Cat Sanctuary. Flower stalks can grow four or five feet tall. At that height they're frail and likely to blow over in the wind.
Looking at the not-a-lawn today, I see not one ladies-thumb flower. I see plenty of ladies-thumb grass. This wonderful plant is something in between a grass and a grain. If it's constantly trampled, rolled on, cut or bitten back, etc., it will grow like grass, covering the ground with green. If it's allowed to grow, it produces some of the tastiest flowers...
Photo from Illinois Wildflowers.
Ladies-thumb or redshank grass has a reddish undertone to the talks, tends to form red spots on the leaves, and bears pink flowers. These flowers look like grass seed heads, or like miniature buckwheat heads, because that is what they are, The pink flowers are tender enough to eat raw, and have a flavor that reminds me of fresh corn on the cob. It's not the same, and not as good, but it's in that flavor family. As the flower heads dry out, the pink blooms are replaced by hard brown seeds, which can be either ground or boiled tender. Since they're small, they're more likely to be boiled for hot cereal than baked for bread, and it would be a crumbly bread because the seeds don't contain wheat-type gluten. Again, the flavor is not the same as buckwheat, but it's in that flavor family. I don't eat a lot of ladies-thumb but it's nice to have an underlayer of yard grass, below the big showy flowers, that actually tastes good if you do need to harvest and eat it.
But few ladies-thumb plants will have a chance to bloom and re-seed in my not-a-lawn, this year.
This post was prompted when I posted a casual comment at someone else's blog and someone else commented that they weren't familiar with these flowers. They are all considered native in most parts of the Eastern States and are available from garden shops. As their names suggest, they're all common enough that some people consider them weeds, which is ridiculous. If you don't have a place where you want these pretty flowers to grow, why not give them to someone who has? People pay actual money for seeds or starters of each of these flowers. If they're hungry enough, people can even eat them.
None of the flowers has been lost, though the sturdy goldenrod stems have been bent over and most of the goldenrod blooms are much closer to the ground than they would normally be. All of them still grow in the side and back yards. But the poor front yard, where the kittens have been playing hard all summer, looks positively grassy.
Some people claim to think the grassy look is an improvement. I just don't have that knd of eyes. I think, well, this year there were kittens, and the plants are all hardy natives (except for the "Asian" dayflowers) that will probably need little or no encouragement to spread back into the not-a-lawn next year.
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