The views are breathtaking - mountains, steep cliffs, and blue blue water. We stopped over and over again, because every stop is worth photographing. Although we were gone just 4 nights, we felt as refreshed and relaxed as if we had been away 2 weeks.
This flower bed at the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Baddeck is a lovely combination of leaves of different sizes and colours and textures, with hosta, ornamental grasses, purple smoke bush, Maltese cross, day lilies, and shrub roses.
These short shrubby akders covered with tiny cones grow close to the beaches.
The cones are an important food source for chickadees.
The cones are an important food source for chickadees.
These blueberries need much more time to turn blue.
Harebells (Campenula rotundifolia) growing in a most inhospitable place between rocks on the shore.
Daisies, long grasses, and other beauties made me want to stop a while.
Elderberries will turn black when they ripen. Birds love them, but we people need to cook them to make them palatable.
Evening Primrose struggles to grow through pebbles.
Pearly Everlasting has grayish foliage, a sure sign of a tough plant that can handle drought.
The Settlers Garden in North Highlands had examples of plants
the first European settlers would have used as food and medicine.
Kalmia angustifolia was sprinkled all along the Skyline trail in Cape Breton.
It's common name is Sheep Laurel, and it is poisonous to livestock.
Native wild roses are found along the roadsides and close to the shore.
Rosa multiflora, a European escapee, is a beautiful plant
but can be invasive and crowd out native vegetation.
I picked wild strawberries at the shore near Neil's Harbour.
There are more wild flowers growing on the shores and forests of Cape Breton than I have room to show here. It is worth a trip to find more for yourself!
the first European settlers would have used as food and medicine.
Honeysuckle flowers
Malva comes in white, solid purple, and purple stripes
It's common name is Sheep Laurel, and it is poisonous to livestock.
but can be invasive and crowd out native vegetation.
There are more wild flowers growing on the shores and forests of Cape Breton than I have room to show here. It is worth a trip to find more for yourself!
Nice blog, glad to see someone care about plants! Good call on Rosa multiflora, it is becoming a big problem in many parts of Nova Scotia. One rose you identified as "wild" is the invasive Rosa rugosa, the Chinese beach rose. In Cape Breton, it is moving most of the native vegetation off the beaches. We have more information on the plants you might not want to have overrunning the beautiful native vegetation. Our native wild roses have outstanding fall colors, and far more dainty flowers. These plants live in harmony with other important wildlife food plants. We are on Facebook and Pinterest as Invasive Plants Cape Breton, in a public education effort, as a rural population with little government support has little defense against the permanent loss of habitat diversity that can result from allowing invasive plants introduced by people to grow unchecked. This is a form of litter/pollution that is alive, and it grows, and grows, and grows. Difficult as they are to remove now, it will be much, much worse for our grandchildren.
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