Another year, another ironweed

This morning I find the purple ironweed bush at the bottom of my lane is in full bloom. Around here, people usually call it wild butterfly bush. What I was also glad to see is that the bush was covered with bees. I’ve been hearing that colony collapse disorder is worse than ever this year. As Roundtop is nearly surrounded by orchards that depend on bees to pollinate the fruit, that news is particularly worrisome.

Knowing that I’d previously blogged about ironweed, I went back into my archives and discovered I posted about them on June 24, 2008 and June 27, 2007. That’s pretty consistent, isn’t it?

Who knew that blogging tags would make it so easy to keep track of when things happen in the natural year? I know I sure didn’t realize that for a while, but now I regularly check the tags and archive. Usually birds and plants are pretty consistent, but I can’t say that I expected to find a blog post about ironweed on the same day a year ago.

To me, the ironweed bush(es) looks extra flowery this year. Perhaps this is another plant that has appreciated all the rain of the last two months. The second photo shows how many blooms I found this morning. Ironweed is another plant that many people consider a weed. I just don't get that.