Our native Obedient plant (False Dragonhead) is important late-summer bloomer
Obedient plant is quick to find a home in the sandy soil in our garden. This native plant is a favourite for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds in the late summer when it begins to bloom.
Late summer is the time for our Obedient plant to go into full gear in the garden bringing in the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds with its soft lavender spikes of flowers on three-four-foot stalks.
Some people are quick to call these fall performers aggressive and invasive, I prefer to call them what they are – great plants that are happy to fill in any open spaces in the garden but are super easy to remove if they get into areas where you really don’t want them. They can be important late-summer bloomers for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds looking for the last sources of nectar before the cold weather hits.
If you are looking for more information on growing native flowers, you might be interested in going to my comprehensive article: Why we should use native plants in our gardens.
For more on photographing flowers in your garden, check out my comprehensive post on Flower Photography in Your Garden.
A bumble bee works the Obedient plant in late summer.
Why are they called Obedient Plant?
With what we already know about this plant’s behaviours, “obedient” seems the perfect description of this native plant.
However, the plants earned that name, not for any of the reasons described above, but for the uncanny ability the blossoms have of remaining in place after being turned in any direction. Great fun for kids but of little value in the garden accept maybe to turn them in the direction of the light to photograph them.
The plant (Physostegia virginiana), is actually a member of the Lamiaceae (Mint Family) and goes by a number of given names including: False Dragonhead and Virginia Lions-heart. Obedient plant, being a member of the mint family, sports the square stems common to the plant family.
Obedient plant can be attractive to both pollinators and humans in our gardens with its showy purple flowers in late summer early fall.
Is Obedient plant easy to get established?
Like many native plants, this perennial is easy to establish and maintain.
In our garden, Obedient plant grows with abandon in a sunny area beside our patio. Although it spreads aggressively by stolons, it’s important to remember that it is also easy to keep in check. Its shallow roots are especially easy to pull out by hand in our sandy soil.
I tend to let plants find their own way and compete for their own space, not unlike the ground covers in our garden. Needless to say, Obedient plant often wins out, growing right up through the ground covers.
For most of the summer they go unnoticed, but by mid-August the 4-6 in. terminal spikes of lavender, tubular flowers – similar to snap dragons – begin showing the first signs of flowers. By the end of August they are in bloom and being visited by a host of native bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.
Light Requirement: Sun, Part Shade, Shade
Soil Moisture: Moist
Soil Description: Moist, humus-rich soils.
When does Obedient plant bloom?
Depending on where they are growing, they bloom in August, September, October and, in warmer climates, through to November.
Our flowers are lavender, but white and pink varieties are also available.
Where does Obedient plant grow?
These plants are found throughout the United States and parts of Canada growing naturally from Quebec to Minnesota and south to Florida and Texas into northern Mexico.
In the wild, they can be found growing along river banks, in lowland wet thickets and swamps. These tough perennials will grow in sand, clay and limestone and are at home in areas of poor drainage.
Are Obedient plants easy to propogate?
These plants are easy to propopagate by division of roots or by seed. If you already have plants growing, I would definitely use the division method to increase your numbers and spread the clump forming plants around the sunny areas or your garden.
If you choose to plant seeds, you can sow them in fall or spring after a period of damp stratification (3 months at 40 degrees).
Blue Lobelia: A native plant perfect for late summer colour
Great Blue Lobelia is a native plant that is at home in both full sun or part shade in the woodland garden. Grow them with Black-Eyed-Susan and Bee Balm for a terrific tapestry in the garden.
What plant combinations work well with Blue Lobelia?
The tapestry created by Black-Eyed-Susans, Blue Lobelia and Bee Balm is beautiful to look at but even better for the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.
The combination of our native Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica L.), Black-Eyed-Susans and Monarda is a match made in heaven in my garden.
I love the natural look the plant combination creates, but no matter how much I enjoy looking at this combination, it’s the native bees (especially bumblebees), butterflies and hummingbirds that really reap the rewards of this trio of native wildflowers growing together and creating the most lovely tapestry.
Create a pollinator paradise with Blue Lobelia
Add to this trio, four or five Cardinal flower stems shooting up just a foot or two away and you have a perfect pollinator paradise.
And, keeping the entire group happy and thriving is not too difficult.
Our native Blue Lobelia is a low maintenance, moisture-loving plant that does well in shade or full sun. It flowers late in summer into the early fall along with the tough, hard-working Black-Eyed-Susans that are happy in most situations including part-sun to full sun.
It’s not hard to fall in love with the Blue Lobelia. I planted it for the first time in our woodland this year and without a doubt, it has become one of the stalwarts of our garden in just its first year.
This bumble bee was caught climbing into the lobelia to feed.
The Blue Lobelia’s stems produce lavender-blue, tubular flowers that grow close together on the upper parts of the stems. The showy, bright blue flowers grow in the axils of the plant’s leafy bracts forming an elongated cluster on each stem. The flowers have two lips – an upper lip sporting two segments and the lower lip, three.
If you are looking for more information on growing native flowers, you might be interested in going to my comprehensive article: Why we should use native plants in our gardens.
Blue Lobelia’s love of moisture also makes them a nice companion with the Cardinal flower. I have them growing in a part-sun, part-shade area beside our patio where I can keep them well watered along with Cardinal flower and native Bee Balm.
For more on photographing flowers in your garden, check out my comprehensive post on Flower Photography.
Great Blue Lobelia is a tough perennial for the woodland
Let’s take a closer look at this often-overlooked native perennial wildflower that’s at home in hardiness zones 3-7.
The Blue Lobelia is part of the Campanulaceae (Bellflower Family), and is a highly desirable plant for woodland gardens.
It grows from 1-3 feet tall and blooms from July through to October depending on where it is planted. In nature, you are likely to find it growing wild in open, wet woods where sun is able to penetrate to the forest floor. It also grows along stream banks, marshes and open meadows.
Lobelia growing conditions
Light Requirement: Sun , Part Shade , Shade
Soil Moisture: Moist , Wet
Drought Tolerance: Low
Soil Description: Clay, Loam, Sand
Conditions Comments: Keep the soil moist around it by watering it regularly if necessary.
How to propagate Blue Lobelia
The best way to propagate this attractive plant is to divide the clumps in the spring. It’s also possible to plant the stratified seed lightly on the soil surface. Seeds need to be cold stratified (less than 40 degrees) in a moist environment for about two months. A cold winter in Ontario or north-eastern U.S. would get the job done.
Great blue plants for your garden
Blue plants are not easy to find. In fact, only about 10 per cent of the flowering plants worldwide are blue. So finding one that is native to our area and brings with it so much value to native wildlife makes this plant a real bonus and one that needs to find a place in all our gardens.
Five blue flowers to add to your garden
If you are looking for a few more blue flowers to add to your landscape, consider the following:
Delphiniums: a popular wildflower that grow tall on hardy spikes and add a lovely soft blue to the landscape.
Love-in-a-Mist: A spring bloomer that will be at home in a variety of soil types is a generally sunny location.
New England Aster: Another native plant that is a favourite for butterflies, native bees and birds.
Forget Me Not: These charming, little early spring wildflowers are at home in damp, shady areas of your woodland garden. Easy to grow and quick to spread when they are happy.
Blue Columbine: Native columbine tend to be red-yellow combination but the blue columbines are exquisite and still a favourite of hummingbirds.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something Blue
It’s not hard to fall in love with the Blue Lobelia. I planted it for the first time in our woodland this year and without a doubt, it has become one of the stalwarts of our garden in just its first year.
The tall spikes of blue flowers are not only a beautiful addition to the garden, they are also a favourite plant of our native bumble bees.
Teamed up with an older drift of Black-Eyed-Susans, these new blue flowers cool down the colours and create a lovely tapestry along with the reds of the bee balm.
If you know someone with a clump of these native flowers, be sure to borrow some either by asking for a clump via division or getting some seed.
You too will soon be wedded to these native blues.
Focus on Cardinal flowers to attract hummingbirds
If you plant only one flower, make it a Cardinal flower and enjoy the added benefit of hummingbirds. This native North American wildflower is s much at home in the Woodland garden as it is growing alongside a river.
North American native flower that attracts hummingbirds and butterflies
The Cardinal Flower is as close to a guarantee of attracting hummingbirds to your garden as anything, other than maybe a commercial feeder.
But the cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis L.), with its spires of scarlet tubular flowers, is certainly more attractive growing throughout the garden than any commercial feeder could ever hope to be.
Be sure to check out my earlier article on how to photograph hummingbirds in the garden and my comprehensive post on Flower photography in the garden.
Adding to its attractive qualities is the fact it is native throughout parts of North America in both the United States and Canada, blooms for a month or longer later in the summer, is slightly aromatic, and is a nectar source not only for hummingbirds but also swallowtail butterflies and other insects and butterflies. The scarlet-coloured wildflower, with delicate blossoms that open from bottom to top on spikes that can reach between two to four feet in height, is a member of the Bluebell family.
If you are looking for more information on growing native flowers, you might be interested in going to my comprehensive article: Why we should use native plants in our gardens.
Here, a Ruby-throated hummingbird feeds at a Cardinal flower a little later in the season. You can see how the flowers on the very top of the plant after earlier blooms have died off leaving a pod of seeds which should be sprinkled about the ground.
What are good companion plants for Cardinal flower?
It’s as much at home in a woodland or shade garden surrounded by hostas and ferns that also enjoy plenty of moisture, as it is as a specimen plant stealing the show in a small, contemporary garden alongside a man-made stream. Look to pair the Cardinal flower with moisture-loving plants that will live happily alongside Cardinal flower.
Where to plant Cardinal flower to easily capture great hummingbird photos
For garden photographers, the plants’ elegant spires stretching up against a blue sky is reason enough to include them in the garden. But the real reason to plant Cardinal flower en-masse is to catch an image of a hummingbird in its natural environment. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect flower to plant in your garden to show off our beautiful hummingbirds in a more natural setting. Plan to spend time, however, working the hummingbird/flower combination. Getting the right light to stop the frenetic motion of the hummingbird requires patience, luck and good lighting.
“Hoping to bring the plant back into the fold, this time in a lower garden within the stone terrace, I picked a seed stalk and placed it on bare soil in a gap next to the flagstones. The next year a seedling sprouted from the gap, and the following year it flowered and went to seed. hundreds of seedlings emerged in the cracks between the stones in the terrace next year. The year after that, a few of these plants flowered and the following year the terrace was a sea of red cardinal flowers. A pair of hummingbirds hovered over the terrace all summer, and my main task was to remove enough of the lush red flowered growth to create paths and a place for my dining table. ”
I have a nice patch of the flowers growing near my favourite patio chair allowing me to easily photograph the tiny, frenetic birds from the comfort of my favourite chair with a coffee – or even better – a glass of wine.
One of the other benefits of planting Cardinal flowers near a patio is the ease of keeping the soil around the plants moist. Hanging baskets and other container plants around our patio get watered daily, so it’s easy enough to water the Cardinal flowers at the same time.
Don’t mistake the plants for weeds. The plants themselves, which appear in spring as dark green leaves, are tapered at both ends. The flowers appear later in summer – July and August – depending on your location.
A cardinal flower in full bloom with the flowers running up the large 2 to 4ft spikes.
Do deer eat Cardinal flowers?
For those of us who are lucky enough to share our backyard with deer, Cardinal flowers have proven to be extremely deer resistant. This might be because all the parts of the plant are considered toxic if eaten in large quantities.
Where do Cardinal flowers grow?
In nature, you’ll find them growing on the edge of woodlands, the banks of streams, near lakes or ponds and swamps. Yes, you can often find them growing happily in moist, wet areas, but you’ll also find them along ditches, along roadsides, in ravines prairies, meadows and even in pastures.
Are Cardinal Flowers native to New England and other areas of the United States?
In the United States they are found growing naturally from Minnesota, south to Florida, Texas and California. They are also native to New England. They are also at home throughout Mexico and through Central and South America.
In Canada, Cardinal flower is native from New Brunswick through parts of Ontario, including down through southern Ontario and throughout the Carolinian zone. In colder areas, adding a mulch layer of leaves over the winter will provide needed protection.
To grow them successfully the plants’ roots need to be kept moist, even wet, but the plants can grow in sun, part shade right through to deeper shade. They prefer to grow in a humus-rich soil, but can do well in medium loam, clay loam and sandy loam.
Cardinal flowers can be easy to grow
In the right conditions, Cardinal flowers are easy-to-grow perennials and will spread in the garden to create lovely drifts of intense flowers. They can, however, disappear quickly if they are not provided with the right conditions because individual plants are actually short-lived perennials. It’s important to allow the plants to reseed themselves in the garden to keep them prospering for years.
Do not cut down the dead and dying stalks without at first distributing the seeds around where they are growing. The seeds need cold stratification to germinate the following spring. One way to better ensure success is to lay the flower stems with seeds in them on top of soil so the seeds disperse and spread on their own. In the picture below, from the book Garden Revolution (link to my review of the book), seeds from a single plant made their way down the terrace following heavy rains a reseeded.
The image of Cardinal flowers taken from the inspiring book Garden Revolution, shows just how spectacular the plant can be in the landscape. These flowers were all grown from a single plant’s seeds spread about the terrace from rains.
In conclusion
It may take a little effort finding native Cardinal flower, but the effort is certainly worthwhile. Not only are they impressive in the landscape all on their own, but the fact they bring our landscapes to life with hummingbirds, butterflies and other pollinators makes them indespensible in our woodland gardens.
In the book Garden Revolution, How our landscapes can be a source of environmental change, (Ferns and Feather book review link) authors Larry Weaner and Thomas Christopher tell the story about how Cardinal flowers played a major role in shaping how they changed their approach to landscaping. Weaner describes his special relationship with the plant in his garden: “A number of years passed and I saw no Cardinal flowers in my yard until one spindly plant emerged from between a grouping of stones. Hoping to bring the plant back into the fold, this time in a lower garden within the stone terrace, I picked a seed stalk and placed it on bare soil in a gap next to the flagstones. The next year a seedling sprouted from the gap, and the following year it flowered and went to seed. hundreds of seedlings emerged in the cracks between the stones in the terrace next year. The year after that, a few of these plants flowered and the following year the terrace was a sea of red cardinal flowers. A pair of hummingbirds hovered over the terrace all summer, and my main task was to remove enough of the lush red flowered growth to create paths and a place for my dining table.”
The image included in the book (above) of a sea of red spikes surrounding the terrace should convince everyone who is not growing Cardinal flower to track them down and get them into the ground as soon as possible.
