Who are you calling a weed?

by Kelly

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. ~A.A. Milne

Just down the street from me is an empty lot...it's been abandoned for sometime now.  I happened to be walking my dogs a few days ago and our path that day took us by the empty lot.  And I literally stopped in my tracks. Because the entire lot was covered in henbit...a delightful carpet of magenta blossoms.

Now, most likely, if you're reading this and you're a dude, you are probably grimacing at the idea of an entire yard full of weeds.

But it's like most things in life I have found...it all depends on the way you look at it.  So I did a little research on this often maligned and despised common yard weed.

As it turns out, common Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) is a member of the mint family and most likely Mediterranean in origin.  And in addition, it is an important source of pollen and nectar for honeybees in the early spring.

Fascinating right?

Well to my delight, while crawling around on my hands and knees taking pictures of henbit, I stumbled across many of the most common wildflowers in northeast Oklahoma.  Lamium purpureum, or common deadnettle, is a kissing cousin to henbit.

This little cutie is known as the American Field Pansy (Viola bicolor).

And very closely related is the Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia).

This little guy is most commonly known as Eastern or Virginia Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) and is a member of the portulaca family.  Native Americans used it widely as a food source...they cooked the root (or 'corm') like a potato.  They also believed it to have medicinal properties.

I also stumbled across this teeny little wildflower - a Bluet (Houstonia pusilla).

And finally...last but not least...quite possibly the bane of every lawn-lovers existence...

I'm sorry, but this time of year, after a long, cold, miserable winter, the sunny blossoms of the Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) just make me so happy.  And in case you were curious, dandelions have a number of culinary and medicinal uses.  The greens can be eaten cooked or raw and are high in vitamins A, C, Iron, and are higher in calcium than spinach. 

There you have it.  Probably more information than you ever wanted to know about some of the most common weeds, er wildflowers in my neck of the woods.  But as we look forward to Earth Day this month, and nature being our theme, I thought it was appropriate to give these wildflowers more than a passing glance.  Plus if there are wildflowers, then it must be spring.  And I think we can all agree that is reason enough to celebrate!

So tell us, has spring made its way into your neck of the woods?  Feel free to share with us some of your favorite wildflowers in the Flickr pool or on Instagram using #focusingonlife.

Happy spring my friends! Love, kelly