The Wild Flowers of Detroit

**Lowell** · May-30-14, 09:50 AM

Spring wild flowers are blossoming all over metro Detroit-Windsor with dandelion season fading.

I have a soft spot for these 'outlaws' that are weeds to many. They cheer up dreary places, have their moment in the sun and then step aside.

I am an admitted 'lawn hippie' [I'd make the dandelion the state flower and protect it] and do not allow the lawn service to use any herbicides so I get a nice mix of flowers over the year. But I don't know what this tiny purple one is. It is having a bumper years. Any ideas?

Do you have any favorite Detroit wild flower stories or pictures?

**esighed** · May-30-14, 10:11 AM

I think that's a type of Ground Ivy

Also known as Gill-Over-The-Ground or Creeping Charlie. Does it smell like mint when you sqweeze it? If not then it's a Common Mallow.

Perriwinkles and Wild Geraniums.

**Lowell** · May-30-14, 10:55 AM

^The second picture is myrtle, another of my visitors.

**Detroitnerd** · May-30-14, 11:21 AM

Violets and dandelions are easy to spot.

I love dandelions. You can eat them in salads, use the flowers as pigment, even make dandelion wine.

A weed is a plant whose purpose you haven't found yet.

**gazhekwe** · May-30-14, 04:31 PM

We have Spring Beauties, usually pretty close to the first to appear. Now, in addition to the Creeping Charlie minty one, we have a good crop of wild geraniums and daisies all fixing to bloom in the near future.

Cuing up for later in the season we have milkweed, catnip, wild primrose. We try to let them have their season in the sun, in clusters where we encourage them to share space and look meadowy. They are so generous! Many are edible as well as beautiful and fragrant. Wild geraniums, pictured, have medicinal properties, and the flowers can be used as pretty, edible garnish on desserts and salads.

**compn** · May-30-14, 04:48 PM

some people are trying to save the monarch butterfly by planting milkweed.

http://www.livemonarch.com/free-milkweed-seeds.htm
http://www.hometownlife.com/article/...-help-monarchs

its pretty crazy seeing them migrate, caught that in point pelee canada
http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/on/pel...l/natcul5.aspx

already seen one monarch in my yard this year. its too bad everyone wants to get rid of all the weeds and wildflowers. remember the food web? the bees and insects need flowers to survive, the insects pollinate flowers and plants, the birds eat the insects and seeds.

ah forget it lets just have grass that needs to be cut every 5 days and stir up all the dust into my lungs and leaf blower the pollen into my eyes.

**Jimaz** · May-30-14, 05:44 PM

I'm not certain whether it's considered a wildflower but we surely didn't plant it ourselves. I suspect we were the victims of a clandestine gardener.

Bleeding Hearts

**FlyOnTheWall** · May-30-14, 09:07 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

I'm not sure whether it's considered a wildflower but we surely didn't plant it ourselves. I suspect we were the victims of a drive-by gardener.

Bleeding Hearts

This is one grand flower, one of my favorites. I've seen it at abandoned farms where the house and barn and all other buildings are gone. But it just keeps on a blooming.

Another one is the wonderful Sweet Williams.

And the Dianthus, WOW:

Once these are started they seem to just keep growing forever.

**SDCC** · May-30-14, 09:40 PM

Great pic's, thanks for sharing...some green thumbs afoot, complete with a knowledge of plant genus.

**old guy** · May-30-14, 11:46 PM

A lot of these flowers we always call them volunteers.

**sumas** · May-31-14, 04:18 AM

A volunteer I like is a blue flower [[looks a little like Mountain Bluet) on a short asparagus type ferny plant. Mist is in its name like maybe moon on a mist? Senior moment.

I like Queens Annes lace, Chicory and yes I keep a few milk weeds around for butterflys in the backyard.

I have a fenced in front yard [[sidewalk to house and decided to replant with flowering shrubs. Mostly because it is a small area and sloped and a pain to mow. My plans got delayed with my husbands hospitalization, my Eastern Market grower of choice is out of a few plants I wanted but I will just work around it. I avoided flower day, I hate crowds directed by police. Am so excited to go today and pick up my order. Other things on my list are Ajuga, sweet woodruff, boston ferns, lavender for a cheap hedge and [[sigh) mundane geraniums. Those [[geraniums) are for my 87 year old neighbor, she claims 83. Area kids will plant them for her. I wish every neighbor could be as sweet as her. I miss my Mom who passed 3 yrs ago and she makes a great substitute. We talk almost daily. She has some great volunteers [[plants) in her backyard too.

**Farwell** · May-31-14, 07:46 AM

Originally Posted by sumas

A volunteer I like is a blue flower [[looks a little like Mountain Bluet) on a short asparagus type ferny plant. Mist is in its name like maybe moon on a mist? Senior moment.

I like Queens Annes lace, Chicory and yes I keep a few milk weeds around for butterflys in the backyard.

I have a fenced in front yard [[sidewalk to house and decided to replant with flowering shrubs. Mostly because it is a small area and sloped and a pain to mow. My plans got delayed with my husbands hospitalization, my Eastern Market grower of choice is out of a few plants I wanted but I will just work around it. I avoided flower day, I hate crowds directed by police. Am so excited to go today and pick up my order. Other things on my list are Ajuga, sweet woodruff, boston ferns, lavender for a cheap hedge and [[sigh) mundane geraniums. Those [[geraniums) are for my 87 year old neighbor, she claims 83. Area kids will plant them for her. I wish every neighbor could be as sweet as her. I miss my Mom who passed 3 yrs ago and she makes a great substitute. We talk almost daily. She has some great volunteers [[plants) in her backyard too.

Love-in-a-Mist???

**Crystal** · May-31-14, 03:58 PM

My Dad was born in 1917 and seemed always ahead of his time. He refused to call dandelions weeds and never let us kids pick them. Come to think of it, Dad didn't recognize or acknowledge the word, weed, although he was diligent in keeping poison ivy at bay. In the 1950s and 1960s in Birmingham he was the beekeeper who rescued neighbors from honeybee swarms. Before it was fashionable, Dad cultivated wildflowers in the back yard, that would occasionally encroach into the front yard.

**sumas** · May-31-14, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by Farwell

Love-in-a-Mist???

Yes that is it. Such pretty delicate blue flowers. Wish I still had some. Did do a bit of urban gorilla gardening and finally got some "stolen" fall clematis to take. This is an old neighborhood and we share cuttings. Did get caught snitching a single Siberian Iris bloom. Ok, though, I had given my gardener neighbor about 30 Chinese lilies. Today I sent him home with 5 Munstead lavenders. Gardening is a wonderful hobby. The sharing of seeds and cuttings, transplants etc. is very rewarding.

**canuck** · May-31-14, 07:46 PM

Creeping charlie is pervasive in Montreal too. I had a lot of problems with goutweed and horsetail when I added wild plants in my garden in the suburbs. Now, I live in the city and my garden is tiny and there's goutweed galore which was not visible when we visited the house before buying in the late fall of 2013. So many of these potent plants are medicinal and useful but when gardening, you need to educate yourself about the opposition of forces that inevitably cause trouble. I still love wild flowers.but I avoid transplants now that my enthusiasm is somewhat dampened by sweat over weeding chores.

**sumas** · June-01-14, 06:13 AM

I am a purist about organic if something is to be consumed. Other than that I have no problems using chemicals to combat invasive weeds. Weed beGone Max applied weekly for four weeks is the only thing I have used that gets rid of creeping charlie. My current bane is garlic mustard. Each plant can produce a 1000 seeds and can lie dormant for up to 10 yrs. It is a non native invasive. My motto is by any means possible.

**gazhekwe** · June-01-14, 06:49 AM

Eat the garlic mustard! It makes wonderful pesto which you can freeze for use all year. I love it. It goes well in salads and as an additional green in stir-fries. I pull them up by the roots and use the chopped roots too. It is a biennial plant and this seems to be the year for them in my yard. I hope to put up a ton of pesto. Yum!

As for goutweed, our house had this planted as an ornamental border from the 1960s, they called it snow-on-the-mountain. Apparently it was a very popular garden plant at the time.

**gazhekwe** · June-01-14, 06:59 AM

Garlic Mustard Pesto

* 3 cups Garlic Mustard leaves, washed, patted dry, and packed in a measuring cup
* 2 large garlic cloves, peeled & chopped
* 1 cup Walnuts
* 1 cup Olive Oil
* 1 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
* 1/4 cup grated Romano Cheese [[or more Parmesan)
* Salt & Pepper to taste

Combine Garlic Mustard leaves, garlic and walnuts in food processor and chop. Or divide recipe in half and use a blender. With motor running, add olive oil slowly. Shut off motor. Add cheeses, salt & pepper. Process briefly to combine.

Serve warm over pasta or spread on crackers as a appetizer. It also makes a great topping for baked fish.

You can freeze this in ice cube trays, then put them into a freezer bag for future use. Garlic mustard will only be ready to pick for a week or two.

**compn** · June-01-14, 01:39 PM

garlic mustard is tasty. ate a large dandelion that was growing in my garden too.

used to pull up all the nettles, until finally realizing that making a tea out of nettles makes my allergies go away 100%. being allergy free is amazing.
more info http://www.foxnews.com/health/2010/0...tle-allergies/

**canuck** · June-01-14, 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by gazhekwe

Eat the garlic mustard! It makes wonderful pesto which you can freeze for use all year. I love it. It goes well in salads and as an additional green in stir-fries. I pull them up by the roots and use the chopped roots too. It is a biennial plant and this seems to be the year for them in my yard. I hope to put up a ton of pesto. Yum!

As for goutweed, our house had this planted as an ornamental border from the 1960s, they called it snow-on-the-mountain. Apparently it was a very popular garden plant at the time.

I will try your pesto recipe gaz, my sons love making as well as eating it. We use Italian parsley too with lots of garlic as a substitute for basil, but yr garlic mustard sounds better.

The Snow-on-the-mountain variety I had also in my old garden but it seemed to be tamer than the dark leaved goutweed that spread like crazy.

**Dumpling** · June-01-14, 03:36 PM

I pick garlic mustard too and it is tasty and free and abundant in this land of milk and
honey! But people should be just a bit careful when picking and eating the weeds:
I was eating all kinds of tasty leafy greens out of my backyard including dill planted by the previous Ukrainian owner of the house, when I came down with an itchy rash. I looked up
dill and other greens and found that they can cause photosensitive reactions, that is, one shouldn't eat much of these greens and be out in the full sunshine at the same time. I
took my problem to the urgent care doc, who diagnosed poison ivy. I know poison ivy, I wouldn't eat poison ivy, I was sure it was a photosensitive reaction I was bothered by.
But back in the yard, now that I had a hint, sure enough there was some poison ivy in a
couple of corners of the yard. I went back to expensive grocery greens for a while after
that.

**sumas** · June-01-14, 07:53 PM

I ascribe to the master gardener program which is: any plant you don't want in your garden is a weed. I do know several people who harvest and eat it. I hate it. It took over my dog run which is 15 X 20 with a 50 foot 4 foot wide run. Then it moved into my lawn. Last year was not our best year for yard maintenance. Just happy our grass was cut and snow shoveled.

**sumas** · June-01-14, 08:12 PM

poison Ivy, that's a battle we dealt with about 5 yrs ago, so not fun. Love my birds but sorting poison ivy from wild grape vine was a true battle. I won but am still vigilant!

**gazhekwe** · June-02-14, 12:16 PM

I would hate to accidentally touch or ingest poison ivy, although personally I am not susceptible to it, it would probably cause harm to anyone who was eating what I put into it. Fortunately, it is easy enough to harvest the garlic mustard, it looks nothing like poison ivy. Also it smells delightfully garlicky when you crush a leaf. You isolate the plant, pull or dig it up by the roots, and when you are done, clean them and separate the leaves for pesto and stir fry. You can also add in the chopped roots.

Without flowers, early in season, roundish base leaves:

With flowers, up to about two feet tall, pointier top leaves:

Poison Ivy, leaflets three, let them be:

**Dumpling** · June-03-14, 03:44 PM

Thanks for the pictures Gazhekwe! That is a good one of poison ivy which
shows that the leaves are just a bit shiny. A lone poison ivy sprig can hide in
plain sight among the other foliage very, very well. The pictures are good
enough to show just exactly what garlic mustard is so that it can be enjoyed.