An Iowa Garden

Sometimes weeds can make you feel pretty foolish. One of my shady beds has a nice wildflower, Dodecatheon pulchellum, the dark throated shooting star, which has ovoid, slightly hairy leaves growing in a basilar cluster. I had just planted it last year, and so this spring I eagerly awaited its return, not being sure if it would be winter hardy. To my relief, it fairly sprang out of the ground as the earth warmed, and then to my delight, it rapidly formed a very large rosette of leaves, soon sending up numerous flower stalks. I was a little puzzled by the fact that the leaves were getting so long, and I became more than a little puzzled as the initial vigorous growth turned to a gallop, as the plant rapidly spread. I also didn't remember the flower stalks of the shooting star being hairy, as these were. As the flowers then opened, to my chagrin, they were small dandelion-like yellow flowers, and it dawned on me that a plant with leaves very similar to the shooting star, had almost completely taken over its spot. One small flower stalk (seen faintly in the picture) of shooting stars then struggled to open. To my horror, in getting out my weed book, I realized the yellow-flowered plant, now starting to try and spread out into the garden path by runners, was meadow hawkweed, a terrible invasive weed (which I then pulled, leaving a much-dimished, but relieved, shooting star). I felt a little tricked, as the leaves of the two plants were hard to pick apart, even side-by-side ... pretty sneaky! I always like to think that you have to get up pretty early in the morning to put one over on me, but in this case 10 o' clock would probably be early enough.