The Most Beautiful Flower in Vernon

"I was in the fourth or fifth grade and I used to take the long way from school to my grandmother's so that I could feed the goats on the hill milkweed. I walked up and down hills to feed them. One goat used to eat the milkweed. I probably killed that goat." My Mom knew exactly the story I wanted from her when I  called and asked her to tell me the milkweed story. My mother is 82 and for as long as I can remember, she has recited that story when the milkweed was tall enough to be seen above its neighbors. I imagine that decades of hearing about mom's guilt for poisoning that poor goat is the reason for my fondness of Milkweed.  I also suspect that she unnecessarily suffers her guilt, as each and every time she returned to feed the goat, there it was. When our Country set out to save the beloved Monarch Butterfly by planting the noxious milkweed up hill and down dale, I believe in my heart of hearts that each seed scattered by school children everywhere, has been an offering of forgiveness for not only my Mom's goat food indiscretions; but also for all of us who uprooted the weed to the point of almost losing the Monarch.

One of our first landscaping projects at our house in Vernon was to transplant two crab apple trees growing under the electric line; but why stop there? There were three rows of purple lilacs that "required" re-homing and Rosa rugosa was all the rage back then. I had taken to the idea that I needed a rose bed to feed the bees and no amount of work Wayne was up against  was going to dissuade me from this trend. At every opportunity I picked up a bush, a bag of dirt and everything else I could find to improve their chances for survival. Each blossom filled the air with the fragrance of sweet reward and the blossoms buzzed with Japanese Beetles. At first I began picking each beetle off by hand in the morning ...even those that were madly in love. Next I bought beetle traps which stunk to high heaven and so required emptying each evening. Pretty soon we were picking bugs at every opportunity and spreading Milky Spores on the lawn.  Finally, we removed our bushes when the now hoards of  ravenous Casanovas consumed every rosebud before it could bloom. Well, as the great 1980's philosopher Bret Michaels of the group Poison once penned, "Every Rose Has It's Thorn."

I love receiving messages from Mary Miller. Mary is a wonderfully encouraging presence who often shares her favorites and finds with me here. Each time she contacts me she delightfully offers things like: One of my favorites.. another one to watch for... Do you forge for wild edibles? and, two on my mind today... It's difficult for me to tell which is Mary's absolute favorite plant so I have come to think that her favorite is the one that she has just witnessed while wandering about here in Vernon. Mary's most recent share with me was Bedstraw. Mary wrote: Walking by this beautiful bedstraw this evening...my attraction this week is that it is such a fluffy cloud of flowers!  I just looked it up and it is edible.  I've never tried it and don't think I will yet.  It said that early settlers brought it over for its medicinal value. All I knew was that it was one of the plant materials used to fill mattresses. This article says it is fragrant so I'll have to smell it!

So what is the most beautiful flower in Vernon and why am I even writing about this subject anyway? Of course Wayne has something to do with it; but when I asked him this very question his initial response was, "I guess I don't think about it very much" He then followed up with, "I guess I like Snap Dragons." The funny thing is that we don't have a single stalk of Snap Dragons on the property and never have.  It's like that time I was telling Wayne that we needed to paint the dining room and I asked him which yellow was best and Wayne said that he didn't like yellow walls and I said, "but I always paint the dining room yellow" and he said, "I know." I think that I am on to something here, for it was when I asked Wayne if the yard was looking the way that he had envisioned he replied, "We have too many plants, there is too much to mow around."

The most beautiful flower in Vernon is: a childhood memory, a reminder of love when nothing else makes sense, it evokes a feeling of value and is where you find it. -Norma Manning

Bedstraw - Mary Miller

Rosa rugosa

One of 197 species of Milkweed