Once You Have Goldenrod . . .

 "Once you have goldenrod, you will always have goldenrod," was the cryptic remark of a stalwart in the Naples chapter of the  Florida Native Plant Society when I took home a specimen she had potted. I asked what she meant, and she just gave me a wry smile, and said, "You'll see."

It didn't take too long. Look up "goldenrod" on a search engine and you'll find topics like, " How do I control goldenrod in my garden," and "How do I get rid of goldenrod in my garden."

Besides being tough as nails, the species I got from Freda spreads vigorously by rhizomes. Pot it up, and it creeps out through every drainage hole. Pull it out, and it shows up across the path, or in a neighboring bed after a few weeks. It produces thousands of seeds, but they don't seem to be all that viable, because the plant doesn't jump all the way across the yard, but stays mainly in the general area where I first planted it. Maybe the seeds are mostly for the little creatures that must eat them.  

"Our" goldenrod grows outside the easterly wall, which is remarkably deficient in windows, so I don't have a good idea of what goes on with it. Still, I get the idea that the butterflies and skippers that visit us generally find other flowers in the yard more attractive. On the other hand, I rarely pass by it without seeing some manner of wasp or bee vigorously stuffing itself or collecting pollen. Often there may be several species feeding at the same time.

Paper Wasp on Goldenrod

The plant in our yard seems to fit the description of Solidago fistulosa, "Pinebarren Goldenrod," better than any others, but I'm making no guarantees. There are over 100 species of goldenrod worldwide, and they hybridize readily. On the other hand, according to the 1998 edition of Wunderlin's Guide to the Vascular Plants of Florida, only about 5 species occur naturally in southern Florida, and it doesn't really look like any of the other possibilities.

Goldenrod, Pen & Ink

It doesn't form a classic basal rosette like many members of the Aster Family, including some goldenrods, but just pops straight out of the ground, and reaches for the sky, unburdened by any side branches. Narrow, lance-shaped leaves, sometimes with toothed margins, alternate around a bristly stem. The leaves are attached directly to the stem, with no petioles. As the stem elongates, the lower leaves wither and may or may not fall off.

The inflorescence is somewhat pyramidal, and made up of graceful, arching wands, alternating around the stems, and bearing numerous saturated yellow heads. The heads have both disc and ray florets, but the latter are a little sparse. The stem usually forms just one inflorescence, at its end, but if you cut off a faded inflorescence, the remaining stem sometimes will produce more blooming wands on its sides. It won't make a new, blooming "pyramid." 

Goldenrod Sketch

The stems can get up to 6 feet tall (though mine don't get that high), and the leaves die from the bottom up, so eventually you have a cluster of dead heads and seeds atop a bare stalk irregularly flagged with withered leaves. That's definitely when it needs to be cut back hard, but being a negligent sort of gardener, I rarely do that in a timely manner. This trait could be masked a bit if the goldenrod were placed behind lower-growing plants. Some of ours have spread into a clump of lavender lantana, but it stays too low to hide the stems completely when they get unsightly. 

It's often windy here, and I should stake them. If our yard were bigger, and the  garden beds wider I could let the goldenrods droop,  but as it is, they flop over and obstruct the path, and become something of a nuisance. It's a magnificent plant, and I wish I had space for a grand swathe of it, bending and bowing in the breeze, instead of my constrained, small patch. But I wouldn't do without it. For one thing, it reminds me of the wisdom,humor, and lop-sided smile of a long-dead friend. 

Megachile Bee on Goldenrod