Goldenrod

I may be the only person in town who is happy to have goldenrod in my garden. Still, you can't beat the color and it attracts swarms of pollinating insects, especially bumblebees of all varieties. The picture below is not great, but it seems to convey the color and shows some insects.

I don't water my plants. It makes them weak. I spot water hydrangeas and a maple tree I planted recently. That's it.

I just planted 3 'Little Lemon' goldenrod from Santa Rosa Nursery. It's a compact hybrid with bright yellow flowers, and the bees are loving it. BTW, from what I've read, goldenrod doesn't cause hay fever - it just blooms at the same time as ragweed.

http://www.perennialresource.com/encyclopedia/view/?plant=1703

I've always thought goldenrod was a problem for people with allergies, but now apparently people think it's not?? That's good. I always thought it was pretty, but my brother has terrible hay fever, so we avoided it like the plague.

We have a pretty patch of it in our gigantic front yard, and I like it fine. Might try getting some more for the garden.

tjohn said:
I don't water my plants. It makes them weak.

No AC for them, either!

DaveSchmidt said:

tjohn said:
I don't water my plants. It makes them weak.

No AC for them, either!

Well, they may get some AC from time to time as it is a constant struggle to get people to close windows before turning on the AC.

Thomas Edison experimented with using the sap from goldenrod to make rubber. It didn't work.

DaveSchmidt said:

tjohn said:
I don't water my plants. It makes them weak.

No AC for them, either!

Garden Nazi?

lizziecat said:
Thomas Edison experimented with using the sap from goldenrod to make rubber. It didn't work.

What on earth made him think of that as an option?? Wow. I'm going to have to look that up now.

Check out the Edison National Historic site next time you're in West Orange. There is (or was last time I was there many years ago) a huge preserved goldenrod plant--the type Edison was interested in. It does seem far fetched to us now, but I guess that Edison thought that goldenrod was abundant, and that its sap was close enough to rubber tree sap. He tried a lot of ideas that didn't work out, and a lot more that did.

I always liked his attitude toward not giving up:

"Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward...."