The Last Of The Season's Wildflowers

As fall settles in this week, we are very close to the end of the wildflowers. But there are still a few standing strong and looking pretty for these last few days of warm temperatures. This is our maiden grass patch by the barn garage. It's a beautiful perennial that gets to about 10 feet tall and has been home and shelter to all kinds of wild animals over the years.

This calico aster is showing exactly why it's called calico - the centers of the flower change colors as they mature, from bright yellow to dark red to brown. Here is the whole rainbow on one plant.

The goldenrods were plentiful in the wildflower field this year, and their color was stunning. They're crazy-popular with the bees and butterflies, and they're always surrounded by birds.

And by puppies.

This one I had to look up because I'm not familiar with boneset. It's been in our field the entire time, but I hadn't taken the time to find out what it is. It has large clusters of small, fuzzy flowers that don't come out until late summer. It's love how soft they look in the middle of all the dry, prickly grass right now.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, are the final seedpods from our milkweed plants. Southern Iowa is a thoroughfare for monarch butterflies, and milkweed plants are their main source of food. The more milkweed we grow, the more monarchs we have, the more butterflies are in the ecosystem. All that from one property - imagine what it's like all across the state and around the country!