Wild Flower ~ Catnip

I have no idea what I was thinking.  I picked a small piece of wild growing catnip and put it in my flower press.

Every day, my 9 year-old's cat (Tiger) would attack my flower press.  I finally opened the flower press yesterday and gave him that dried catnip.  He went nuts!  Then along came the other cats and wanted some.  

My 9 year-old has been wanting to dry some to make a safe cat toy for her cat.  I had her look at my wild flower book, so that she could identify it correctly, before she picked it.

We now have catnip drying in the garage, away from Tiger.  The catnip will not be making an appearance on my wild flower book, for the sake of keeping my book in tact.

Dear Lord, Please bring me some of that delicious catnip tomorrow. Amen.

Wild Flowers

The kids just take over the computer when they get home, so while I waited for my turn, I worked on my wild flower book.

My 9, 12, and 14 year-old daughters were sitting around the table watching me.  It's turning out pretty nice too. I just need to label each page and write down where they each grow.

After I worked on that, and got my turn on the computer (he he, I needed to see how to bind off with knitting on YouTube again, I just forgot how to do it already), I went out to pick more wild flowers.

We came back in with this flower, and honeysuckle. 

I saw bushes that had clusters of white berries on them.  I am pretty sure it's White Baneberry - a completely poisonous plant.  I'm working with a park district expert to see if I am correct on the baneberry, and will have to remove it somehow.  The word "bane" is typically found in names of poisonous plants. If it stops raining, I will pull on my mucking boots and go get a few photos of it.

I have no idea what the first white flower that I posted is.  In my wild flower book it looks similar to White Snakeroot.  I guess I'll just have to wait and she what they tell me.

There are approximately 7 wild flowers in our area that are threatened or endangered.  They are:

~Blue-Eyed Grass (Endangered)
~Grass Pink (Threatened)
~Kalms St. Johns Wort (Threatened)
~Prairie Rose (Threatened)
~Prickly Pear Cactus (Potentially Threatened)
~Wild Lupine (Potentially Threatened)
~Wood Lily (Threatened)

I found it interesting that one of the threatened plants, have not been growing here in the wild, since the 1980's.  That plant is the Wild Lupine.  Due to constant weed control and other maintenance techniques, the plants have been eliminated.  Large parks and local preserves have re-planted some of them, starting a recovery program to protect them.


Here are photos of a wild flower display that my 12 year-old put together.  

The flower display turned out very nice.  Imagine who special the pioneers felt, when they woke up to a vase of these in their cabin.