Wildflowers, Weeds, and Blessings

Today I want to write about the weeds that look like flowers that we've kept. Please bear with my post-in-progress.

First: my husband loves the spiderwort. He insisted that it's an iris. Admittedly, this is a fascinating and attractive plant that opens and closes daily. This is an apparent bird blessing that appeared in our flower bed.

Many thanks to my sister for identifying this for us.

Next: we have Dame's Rocket all over our property. This one, we don't so much love as we've given up fighting. In many states, this is a nuisance plant.

The Michigan Bear forum was a great help to me in identifying this weed.

Finally, we have this new, five-leafed, adorable wildflower. I'm trying to identify it. There are several little patches of this around, and I think it's so cute.

 

Update: I got excited for a moment, thinking this is Yellow Evening Primrose (sounds important). But I think the leaves of this are wrong. Things it's not: Maryland Golden Aster; Sundrops (would have been cool); Lance-Leaved Tickseed.

Update: I believe this is a buttercup. It may be a prairie buttercup or a swamp buttercup, or it may be celandine (which is a type of buttercup). Or is it a Yellow Gem Potentilla?

Final update: Potentilla Arenaria.

Gardening with sibs

We spent the day socializing, swimming, grilling (baby back ribs), weeding, and planting with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. We planted a ton of seeds, and they also gave me a bunch to bring home and plant. I can't wait to see what grows there, and I'm especially excited to see if their pumpkins are successful. I don't know how they built their vegetable garden, but it's huge and very nice-looking.

I pulled a few weeds from the adorable lakeside garden while I worked on my tan:

My brother uses many of the same techniques that my farmer parents used. I've really gone off in my own dorky, unprofessional direction (my friends would charitably call me a naturalist wannabe), so it was so strange to see that stuff (very straight rows, planters) again.