“The sun has shown on the earth, and the goldenrod is his fruit.” – Henry David Thoreau, Aug. 30, 1853

Browsing through photographs from various gardens visited last summer, I came across the image of a butterfly, a Harris’ Checkerspot, its wings folded while it sipped nectar from sulfur-yellow flowers. I had forgotten about the day it was taken, but the image brought it all back.

I recall looking through a drift of metallic-blue, globe-shaped flowers that filled an island bed to the golden-tasseled plants just beyond the garden’s edge, blue and gold together, a classic color combination achieved by chance. The globe thistle (Echinops ritro) had been planted by the gardener, the wild goldenrod (Solidago sp.) by the wind.

It was a blue-sky summer day without a breeze, but the stems holding blue and gold flowers to the sun swayed back and forth under the weight of bumblebees and butterflies, tiny wasps, native bees, beetles, every imaginable pollinating insect. I spent the better part of the morning among them and left resolved that next year there would be goldenrods growing in Marjorie’s garden.

Marjorie said it would be good, that goldenrods would bring all kinds of beneficial insects to the garden. And so it remains to decide what and where.

English gardeners have long recognized the garden worth of goldenrods, but it has been a hard sell to American gardeners who think of them as weeds at best, the cause of hay fever at worst. Goldenrod is guilty only by association of the latter charge, flowering at the same time as ragweed, the true cause of hay fever. Goldenrod pollen is too heavy, too sticky to be borne on the wind; hence the dependence on pollinating insects.

We owe to English hybridizers the existence of early cultivars such as ‘Golden Baby,’ a compact, clumping goldenrod about 2 feet high with upright sprays of golden flowers from August through October; ‘Golden Dwarf,’ with yellow flowers on foot-high stems; ‘Cloth of Gold,’ with golden blossoms on 18-inch stems, flowering in late summer; and ‘Golden Mosa,’ with lemon-yellow flowers on 30-inch stems.

While these early hybrids are still available, the list of goldenrod cultivars has grown substantially over the years. I am partial to the native species and their cultivars. One highly rated cultivar is ‘Fireworks,’ selected from S. rugosa, a species native to Maine. It features tiny, bright yellow flowers borne in dense, plumelike panicles on the ends of stiff stems more than 3 feet tall. In addition to attracting butterflies and other pollinating insects, the seeds are eaten by goldfinches and pine siskins.

Goldenrods are more than single-season perennials. Their dried stalks make handsome additions to winter bouquets. Choose stems with only about one-third of the blossoms open and hang them in a dark but well-ventilated room to air-dry. The flowers will remain in the condition they were in when picked.

Few winter scenes are more beautiful than a patch of goldenrods, their dry seed heads coated in ice or dusted with new snow. I look forward to viewing this scene from the family room window, my back to the wood stove.

Or perhaps I will go out to visit the goldenrods and look for galls, insect-caused swellings found on goldenrod stems that serve as winter homes for Eurosta solidaginis, a fruit fly. Thoreau contemplated this relationship between plant and animal, writing the following in July 1853: “The animal signifies its wishes by a touch, and the plant, instead of going on to blossom and bear its normal fruit, devotes itself to the service of the insect and becomes its cradle and food. It suggests that Nature is a kind of gall, that the Creator stung her and man is the grub she is destined to house and feed.”

Send queries to Gardening Questions, P.O. Box 418, Ellsworth 04605, or to rmanley@ptc-me.net. Include name, address and telephone number.