What’s In Bloom

These past few weeks on the Greenway have been full of color and excitement. The North End Parks are fully in bloom with multiple varieties of Daylilies and Echinacea, as are the Fort Point Channel Parks. The Wharf District Parks have bright oxeyes and sunflowers on display, and Chinatown boasts a new bulb introduction: bright yellow lilies. Walk through the Dewey Square Demonstration Gardens and see if you can catch a pollinator at work, or get inspired to cook some fresh summer meals after taking a look at what’s growing in our raised beds.

Giant Coneflower (Rudbeckia maxima) in the Fort Point Channel Parks

We love our Daylilies and Echinacea and Hydrangeas, but we also like to draw attention to some of our more unusual flowers, such as the Giant Coneflower, which flowers on top of six foot tall stalks, or the Stokes’ Aster that begins to bloom with white flowers that become lavender, darkening over time.

Summer Sky Coneflower (Echinacea ‘Katie Saul’) in the Fort Point Channel Parks

Stokes’ Aster (Stokesia laevis ‘Color Wheel’) in the Dewey Square and Fort Point Channel Parks

In late June we observed a very exciting and unique horticultural event: the first flowering of our Eastern Prickly Pear! The Eastern Prickly Pear is a member of the cactus family, and is native to Massachusetts. These plants are listed as endangered, and we have enjoyed introducing them into the park and observing how well they have survived in our urban public space. One of our Horticulturists brought them from the Polly Hill Arboretum on Martha’s Vineyard, and we nurtured these plants and propagated them in our offices, eventually planting them all in the Wharf District Parks last summer. We look forward to even more Prickly Pear flowers next year.

Massachusetts-native Eastern Prickly Pear (Opuntia humifusa) in the Wharf District Parks

Enjoy these recent and current blooms, and look forward to even more color in the coming weeks!

Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata ‘Cinderella’) with a Monarch butterfly in the North End

Smooth Oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides ‘Summer Nights’) and Culver’s Root (Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Roseum’) in the Wharf District Parks

Asiatic Species Lillies (Lillium leichtlinii) in the Chinatown Park