Goldenrod is blooming!

I was coming home from a workshop Sunday, and saw that the goldenrod is blooming. I had been told by a tribal member that parts of it were good for bug bites, and so I googled shamelessly. Hey! It is good for lots of things, and I encourage you to find this out for yourself!

Usually the blooming of goldenrod tells me that the amaranths are blooming, too. Ragweed, the hay fever nemesis, is an amaranth. Ragweed blooms greenish, so you don't see it, you just sneeze it.

Sometimes I see goldenrod before redroot pigweed, which I know sets my seasonal allergies off, but this time I saw the pigweed before the goldenrod. Sigh. The pigweed is in my garden, but the milkweed is guarding it pretty well ... Anyway, they bloom about the same time, and the goldenrods (13 species of them) are so much more visible than the amaranths. All so showy so you see them more easily.

There's no shame in using the clues we are given!