The blooms of late summer in Takoma Park burst forth in vivid purples and yellows.
The vibrant purplish-pink garden phlox pour over the edges of our neighbors’ native flower beds. New York ironweed and species of Joe Pye weed add additional shades of purple to right-of-ways.
Despite their names, ironweed and Joe Pye weed are in no way unwanted, out of place, or overly aggressive. Not weeds, they are native flowers! They provide as much color and beauty, and far greater benefits, than the invasive butterfly bush (Buddleia) or other non-native ornamentals.
On the opposite side of the color wheel are the egg-yolk yellows of black- and brown-eyed Susans, two native Rudbeckia species that have been in bloom since mid-summer. They will hold on to their saturated yellow petals well into fall. Cut-leaf cone flowers and a variety of sunflowers (Helianthus) are similarly long-lasting, growing tall and bowing under the weight of their sun-like flower heads.
Yellow and purple, two colors diametrically opposed, show up in other noteworthy genera, namely, asters (Symphotrichum) and goldenrods (Solidago).
In her remarkable book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer recounts her first day at college attempting to share her desire to study botany with her adviser: “I told him that I chose botany because I wanted to learn about why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together.”
Beauty is not science, she is told. But Kimmerer intuits this beauty reveals a deeper relationship between these essential native flowers and the important role they play in the natural world.
The National Wildlife Federation references Doug Tallamy’s work to list asters and goldenrod as Keystone Native Plants, critical to the health and survival of our ecosystem. They are the two most productive herbaceous plant genera in the Eastern U.S. in terms of the number of moth and butterfly caterpillar species they host. Only Helianthus provides more pollen to native bee species.
As the humidity fades and the evenings grow cooler, take note of the particular beauty of late summer. See the contrasting beauty of purple against yellow and the community of life that thrives therein.
–Slater Knowles
Photos by Slater Knowles
