Central New York–<\/p>\n
The wildflowers in Central New York this year are more sparse than in most summers and often stunted.\u00a0 Drought in late June and early July put a damper on normal development.\u00a0 Even the stalwart Queen Anne’s lace is shorter and the frilly parasol-like flowerheads are smaller.\u00a0 In the roadside drainage ditches there are few cattails and no jewel weed.\u00a0 The natural landscape is impoverished.<\/p>\n
I especially miss the magenta flowers of perennial sweet pea (Lathyrus latifolius).\u00a0 It has naturalized itself around here on the sloping berms that separate the fields from the road shoulders.\u00a0 In good years, I see hundreds of them on my hour-long morning walks.\u00a0 This year there are only small, scattered patches.<\/p>\n
Ordinary people would describe the flowers as “pea-like,” resembling many other legume family blossoms in general, and those of annual sweet peas and edible garden peas in particular.\u00a0 Poets would liken them to small orchids.\u00a0 I side with the poets.<\/p>\n
Around here, the vast majority are magenta, with an occasional plant bearing white or shell-pink blooms.\u00a0 The long, segmented, vining stems can scramble or climb to six feet.<\/p>\n
Sad to say, the flowers do not have the sweet-spicy fragrance of their annual kin.\u00a0 As if to compensate, the perennial sweet pea blooms just when many garden flowers are either finished for the year or right in the middle of their summer siestas.\u00a0 In August the trade-off is worth it.<\/p>\n
Like so many “wild” flowers, perennial sweet peas did not originate in North America.\u00a0 However, they have been rooting (and fixing nitrogen) in our soil now for several centuries.\u00a0 They make a bright addition to the horticultural picture.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Central New York– The wildflowers in Central New York this year are more sparse than in most summers and often stunted.\u00a0 Drought in late June and early July put a damper on normal development.\u00a0 Even the stalwart Queen Anne’s lace is shorter and the frilly parasol-like flowerheads are smaller.\u00a0 In the roadside drainage ditches there … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[163,119,164,161,165,160,159,162],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-summer","tag-climbing-perennials","tag-climbing-plants","tag-drought","tag-late-summer-flowers","tag-lathyrus-latifolius","tag-ornamental-sweet-pea","tag-perennial-sweet-pea","tag-wild-flowers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":480,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}