A sprig of yarrow for remembrance

Snowcapped Achillea filipendulina (01-05-2017)

If I hadn't removed this sizeable clump of a common, summer-blooming yarrow from this spot (I still grow it elsewhere) it would probably look pretty much like this today--after our first snow in a long time...funny to think I took that picture almost precisely seven years ago today. Yarrows are not the most glamorous of plants. But they possess many layers of meaning and significance for me--our gardens are microcosms of the World, but also macrocosms of our souls...and this post (one I think you'll like if you hang in there),,,

Achillea millefolium on Steptoe Butte, Washington (08-01-2012)

I grew up calling this taxon Achillea lanulosa--I am not sure who lumped our Universal American yarrow with the Universal Eurasian species. I took this picture on an enchanted trip to Spokane where I spoke to the "Inland Empire Garden Club" whose amazing leaders retired a few weeks ago--a sort of adumbration of other losses. Just wait. I glossed over this trip far too briefly on another blog post...Check out its range below (from BONAP)

Achillea "millefolium" range

Don't you feel a tad sorry for those counties in the deep South where common yarrow's not been found yet. Or the spotty dark green band creeping up through the High Plains (bet we could find it in most of those counties). Still--not many North American wildflowers have this extensive a range (that I can think of)...I have a hunch we could find it in a lot of those counties pretty easily if we'd tried. I could go on and on about this (and far too many other things I know) but wanted to let you know that our yarrow's cousin is just as widespread in Eurasia:

https://agroatlas.ru/en/content/weeds/Achillea_millefolium/map/index.html

I found this map on the web from a Russian website devoted to weeds: they regard the Holarctic A. millefolium to be a an agricultural pest. As you cam see the "area of distribution" dwarfs the range of our native form in terms of acreage. 

 

Drama in the capitate head of Achillea filipendulina photographed May 21, 2023 on the South side of Zeravshan Pass, Uzbekistan

Returning for a moment to the yellow yarrow I'd launched this post with, here's a picture I took of a typical plant in Central Asia (I've seen it in Kazakhstan and the Caucasus as well). I suspect it has almost as big a range in Eurasia as its white flowered cousin! In fact, it's beginning to spread a tad on OUR hemisphere as well...

Achillea filipendilina in the Continental U.S.A. (BONAP)

Somewhere in my voluminous slide files I have pictures of where this striking yarrow has naturalized liberally on the road verge off Interstate 70 on the "El Rancho" exit towards Evergreen--hundreds of spectacular clumps glow in the summer light if they haven't been upprooted by zealous nativists. I find both these yarrows to be rather thuggish in the garden--and it's obvious lots of people regard them as weeds--but they're sold by the million all over the world. I'd categorize them as more ruderal than rude...

Achillea ageratifolia on "Nexus Berm" 05-29-2017

There are only two species of Achillea native to North America, but the Mediterranean and Western Asia are chockablock full of fantastic yarrows--I've grown dozens, almost all of which are garden worthy. There are especially a bevy of tiny species perfect for rock gardens--with wonderful almost succulent leaves and flowers over a long season. Let me praise just one of these: "Greek Yarrow" (Achillea ageratifolia) is commonly grown and sold by Denver area nurseries. For a few years it had a grandstand presence on the Nexus berm at Denver Botanic Gardens...

Nexus berm on June 9, 2022

A quick flash forward--the berm has been pretty drastically transformed. I sometimes wonder about the yarrow that was removed: it could have probably been propagated to produce a few million plants...

I have quite a few more yarrows I could upload and tales to tell about them. I shall restrain myself with one last image of a yarrow in the wild.

Aricia artaxerxes pollinating Achillea ageratifolia on Mt. Olimbos, Greece July 16, 2015

Achillea ageratifolia  on Olimbos has single heads as opposed to the clustered creature common in our nurseries. There is a special meaning to finding Achillea in Thessaly: the genus was named for Achilles, who was the King of Thessaly, after all. I read somewhere that it has special use for binding wounds--       which would have been very useful for that warlike hero I admired so much as a child.                                         

Peter Yarrow
        

The soundtrack of my youth consisted of a lot of different strains--always Classical music (Baroque especially), a lot of Greek "folk music" (laika) which reached its apogee in the sixties and seventies and especially American folk music. I cannot imagine how many hours I listened to Peter, Paul and Mary. I'm sure I had all their albums at one time, and can't imagine how many times I put them on and off the record player. I heard them twice in concert--one wonderful day in the 1970's at Red Rocks thanks to my sister Mary (Callas Taylor). And once a few years before Mary (Travers) passed away when they performed at Denver Botanic Gardens. I was with my children--who were charmed by the music: "why don't you ever play the at home, dad?" one of them asked. 

Of course I would have been playing them all along as my children grew up if vinyl hadn't been usurped by various kinds of "tapes" and then those were replaced by "CD's" and now it's a complete muddle. I do play them on Spotify or Pandora from time to time--but my kids are in their 30's.

And Paul passed away on Tuesday. Don't think twice, it's all right. The answer is blowing in the wind. When will they ever learn. I'm flying on a Jet Plane. Don't laugh at me, please.