Wait, there's another one.
Yet another...
Some more in "Millennium Park" across the street; flowers mostly spent.
How 'bout this patch?
What is disturbing about the City Hall Park loosestrife is that they're either willfully planted by professionals or not recognized by professionals. City Hall Park was renovated and re-planted in 1999. And this is odd, NYC Parks website lists it as a blooming plant of July in Manhattan, leaving it out of the other boroughs. Is there a dedicated loosestrife constituency in Manhattan that demands its August purple?
This morning I was thinking that I do not see purple loosestrife much in private gardens; maybe only three times in the last 5 years. As I thought this I walked passed a lovely garden in Ditmas Park where those magenta spikes gave another plant away. Loosestrife looks wonderful in just the kind of casual garden beds that I admire, and it does so in August, when all else seems to be failing. As I've said before, and I think this to be the case for many gardeners, Purple Loosestrife doesn't seem to elicit a gardener's rage. Probably because its an invasive of wild lands, not a weed of gardens. We look at it and at worst say it's too bad we can't plant one.
Its easy for us to deduce that most new wetland invasions will be spread via the wild plants, not those from our garden. Lord knows there's millions of them out there already, having spread all by themselves. I was in the Mohawk Valley last week and saw entire wetlands dense with magenta-purple -an amazing sight. It's also easy to say the noose is already around our necks, may as well be hanged.
This morning I was thinking that I do not see purple loosestrife much in private gardens; maybe only three times in the last 5 years. As I thought this I walked passed a lovely garden in Ditmas Park where those magenta spikes gave another plant away. Loosestrife looks wonderful in just the kind of casual garden beds that I admire, and it does so in August, when all else seems to be failing. As I've said before, and I think this to be the case for many gardeners, Purple Loosestrife doesn't seem to elicit a gardener's rage. Probably because its an invasive of wild lands, not a weed of gardens. We look at it and at worst say it's too bad we can't plant one.
Its easy for us to deduce that most new wetland invasions will be spread via the wild plants, not those from our garden. Lord knows there's millions of them out there already, having spread all by themselves. I was in the Mohawk Valley last week and saw entire wetlands dense with magenta-purple -an amazing sight. It's also easy to say the noose is already around our necks, may as well be hanged.
I don't get much opportunity to get close to wetland loosestrife, usually seen racing by in a car. But the City Hall Park plantings allowed me total access for these ID pictures. As always, click on the photo for a larger image.
Whorled and stemless leaves.
The stem itself is square. New side stems shoot out from the leaf axils.
The brown seed capsules after flowers are spent. The wetlands aren't as pretty after the magenta is gone.
A few seed capsules.
The capsule broken open, you can see many tiny seeds. It is said that one mature plant can produce a 2-3 million seeds.
Young Purple Loosestrife.