Butterfly bush versus native hyssop in Manassas

Several years back on a trip to Merrifield Nursery in Gainesville VA with my mother she saw and fell for a purple butterfly bush Buddleia davidii that was particularly showy as most of that nursery's stock is and we brought one home and made it the center piece of her flower bed at the front of the house. My Dutch friend and pen pal, Cor Windhouwer recommended we cut Buddleia down to about knee high in winter. Taking his advice it has performed very well growing about 8 feet tall each summer and giving us a lot of big blooms that do attract lots of nectar seeking creatures, including butterflies and humming birds.

I am amazed how an alien plant can seem to be so beneficial but I know that, not having a long evolution with this plant, our native insects can't lay eggs on it or use the butterfly bush for anything but nectar. That said, it sure is fun to watch them sipping and fitting about on the purple flowers. This article in Rodale news bad butterfly bush details why this flowering Asian plant is a problem in our gardens and we should shun it. So we don't have any butterfly bush in our DC garden but in Manassas I get to take lots of photos of the butterflies that are eating nectar but have to find native plants on which to lay eggs and reproduce in other parts of that garden environment. The huge oak tree is home to over 500 natives species and that is less than 25 feet from the Buddleia. We have a native collection we are beginning to mix in with the non-natives. The New York Aster is one that I mixed in right next to the butterfly bush and is now blooming using the stronger branches of the butterfly bush as a support to hold it upright.

Clear winged moth visits the butterfly bush in daylight hours.  

Male monarch butterfly identified by the two black spots and narrow black lines in the wings. (Thanks Jason Alexander for help with the sex ID) 

 Butterflies rely on a lot of plants and some natives are nick named 'super pollenators' because they offer so much nectar and pollen for the native insects for long periods of time when they need it most. I think this volunteer Anise hyssop is a super native pollenator.  We cultivated it from the first plant that showed up in between the bricks by our old fish and waterlily pond in the back yard of Manassas. It is a great one to have around the yard because numerous bees, butterflies, wasps, flies, moths, hummingbirds, and other small song birds like gold finches visit this flowering mint with a licorish scent summer through autumn.

Seed filled flowers of the native Anise hyssop a member of the mint family that bees and butterflies pollenated earlier this year is now feeding birds like the gold finches that eat the seeds.

Having a mix of native plants planted in with non-native plants helps us supporting the insects that feed our birds and entertain us all year long as well as support life for all. 

male gold finch eating seed of the Anise hyssop

Anise hyssop in the first flower of summer

Native plants in the neighborhood where I grew up

When I visit Manassas I get an thrill out of going on long walks for my heart health and I have had an keen eye on the wild 17 acre lot across the street from where I grew up. I can remember when everything around the house was farm field, we used to play and explore looking for baby rabbits, toads, quails whippoorwills and meadowlarks. Now I often stroll behind that shopping center to admire the nature gone back to native wilderness. Who ever developed this shopping center expected to do a secondary retail space behind it on this big lot but never found a buyer. It was first just grasses left by the original owner who used it as pasture for his cattle. Then over time the native trees and plants along with some aliens took root. Now it is filled with native red cedar and pine trees between meadows and marshy areas of native grasses, sedges and flowering plants. This visit it was in late season bloom and I stopped on my way home to get some images and see if I could find some common milkweed pods to collect to plant in our gardens for those monarch butterflies who need milkweed to survive. This lot would make an excellent nature preserve for an area that is slowly becoming a continuous paved parking lot and desert for our native flora and fauna. 

 The far edge of this wild area is an electrical company facility NOVEC, that has lots of high wires for birds to use as perch and attracts thousands of starlings in fall who put on amazing displays of acrobatic flying each evening about the time the sun is setting.

Here I found an interesting grass going to seed at the edge of the roadway behind the shopping center where puddles of rain water collected earlier in the season and made ponds that had polliwogs eventually turned into little frogs living around them. 

Now the wet areas are dried up they are home to the water grasses golden brown remains and another grass that has a great prickly red seeds. 

Keith and I attended a talk recently on native grasses so on this walk I was looking to see how different they are one from the other. Grasses are a whole new world of plant life to observe and appreciate when you can find them undisturbed. This time of year is especially good since their distinct seeds are on display.  

Beyond the pavement's edge were areas of fuzzy fox tail type red topped grasses of a different type more bottle brush like and these pretty mounds of yellow flowers.

 A close up of the butterfly on a yellow flower and red grass beyond; too deep in for me to venture closer without long pants and protection from ticks.

There were white late blooming thoroughwort and various tall grasses mixed with milkweed and goldenrod. Some poison ivy at the edges too naturally a native but one I have to stay well clear of when I visit the wild. Ever present invasive common teasel. Finally some pictures of the goldenrod and the pretty yellow tickseed sunflowers which drew my attention initially.

Skipper butterfly, wasp and a bug all on the goldenrod sipping the late season nectar. 

wild flower walk at Deep Cut Battlefield Manassas

It began as just a hike to get some exercise and enjoy an unexplored trail in the park. We suited up in long sleeve and pants with our bug proof clothes and some sun screen and big straw hats... of course we also wanted to prevent another exposure to Poison Ivy so we added some ivy block on our feet and legs under our thick socks and hiking shoes. Once we determined where to go for a new trail it was a complete surprise to discover the trail at Deep Cut is a meadow full of flowers that lead to a marshy area and on into the woods and up the hill to the high ground with a scenic view.

thistle and thoroughwort 

grasses mixed with black berry 

Both of us armed with our cameras and luckily good weather blew in after lots of rain so we had a freshly watered wilderness garden to tour. 

With all that tall grass and flowering plants on either side of the mowed trail we were glad we wore protection to keep the deer ticks at bay. This time I am happy to report it worked neither of us got a tick or a serious poison ivy out break. 

The first flower I thought I knew was rag weed turns out to be Late blooming thoroughwort. Near the thistle and bunches of tall flowering grass mixed with berry thickets growing only about 2.5 feet below the grasses. The black stems of those black berry plants were covered with the sharp thorns and I am guessing when I call them black berry. Looking in my field guide I see that Rubus has over 200 varieties that are difficult to distinguish  for experts so lets leave it at that.

late flowering thoroughwort - Eupatorium serotinum

I was in my element strolling along on a mostly empty trail stopping to admire every little plant flowering or to watch as the butterflies skipped from one bunch of flowers to the next. One of my favorites the Iron weed Vernonia noveboracensis was growing in abundance mixed with the daisy like yellow flowers we later determined are tickseed sunflowers ~ Bidens aristosa.

ironweed's violet purple color 

Along the way were more of those wild pink bean flowers and the liatris squarrosa or scaly Blazing-Star which blooms from the top flower down towards the ground. Most plants bloom from the bottom up.

wild pink bean flower and beans straight as a pin

Keith got some good shots of these black swallowtail butterflies but I couldn't get my camera trained on one and focused long enough to capture a good shot. This was the closest I got to a good one while it was visiting the tasty purple ironweed flowers. 

I saw one little patch of white asters out in the field grasses then we came to the edge of the field where I head a crow cawing as Keith approached his sign. He soon flew off into the taller trees but we heard them scolding us for a while after.

There were some orange flowers at the edge of the field along the border where trees grew in the lot next to the field. Jewelweed is a lovely delicate flower also called Spotted touch-me-not Impatients capensis, because the ripe seed pods burst open when touched.  

More to the yellow partridge pea flowering in the grasses next to narrow leaf mountain mint's white flowers and another possible wild mint or bugleweed are visible in this image. 

  

Then I spotted something I never saw before which on close inspection seemed to be an orchid with no leaves again just a stalk sticking up in the grass with tiny white and green flowers. Before long we were seeing them all around us standing in the grass. It's called Slender ladies' tresses or spiranthes gracilis orchidaceae. It seems the leaves die away before the flower appears just like the one we found in the forest last time we went on a walk at the unfinished railroad trail. I was impressed upon careful inspection to see that the flowers wrap around the stem blooming in a spiral along the stalk and the seed pods form there when the flowers drop off. 

Next we ventured along and discovered a marshy wet area where rainwater had collected and the park service added some board walks to make it easy to pass without getting wet. The sky cleared a bit then and looking back I got a great view at the field's edge beside the forest. In the wet area there were tall sedges growing laden full of seeds and on the other side below and growing on the trees were vines. 

 The dreaded Poison Ivy turns a lovely shade of red in the fall seen on this tree trunk below. Leaves of three leave it be!!!

Poison ivy turning red 

Not to be confused with the perfectly delightful Virginia Creeper which has five leaves and also turns a great shade of cherry red in early autumn but doesn't cause any rashes. I thought it was great that they seemed to be right side by side growing on two different trees so I could share them in this side by side comparison here for us all. Also notice how well behaved the VA creeper is staying small and low on the tree compared to the Ivy which is covering the entire tree trunk above. My hand started itching just thinking about it I better move on.

Virginia Creeper 

Next came a patch of Queen ann's lace as we turned the corner and headed off into the woods to escape the heat of the sun which was shinning more.

We enjoyed walking in the shade and things were a bit low key there after so much to see in the fields but Keith's sharp eye soon spotted a butterfly that looked like bark on a tree. This insect posed on a leaf while I took it's portrait no fluttering what so ever perhaps it thought it was hiding?

Then we came upon a tall Joe Pye Weed in bloom next to a little clearing where there was a bridge over a stream full from the rains the day before.

Sharp eyed Keith spotted a red cardinal flower way off on the edge of the stream in the grasses near the edge. I was happy to have a zoom lens to reach out and take a picture because that area was too far away in the tall growth to try and get any closer. 

Soon we were out of the woods again and in a new field with different flowers and bugs. This interesting native wasp was sipping nectar from the golden rods flowers. I was surprised how different flowers were in different fields some of the same but a few that were not in the last field.  

Keith and I on opposite sides of a Monarch butterfly visiting the yellow tickseed sunflower

a soft blue Mist flower - Eupatorium coelestinum : seen in lots of domestic gardens and flower boxes but much shorter and compacted.  

Eventually we found our way back to the parking lot and car but not before exploring the great view from the high ground held by the Confederates where a row of canon stood overlooking the low ground where men were sliced and diced by the bombs trying to assault them during the second battle of Manassas. Unfinished railroad track ran along the edge of this high ground and we followed it back to the top of the field where we began our walk. It was a spectacular wildflower experience to stumble upon, maybe some birthday luck for me as I turned 59 the day before.  

Spotted Keith took my picture as I was pointing my camera at the  butterflies