This blogpost is about one of my favorite plants in my backyard; the Telekia speciosa, also known as the heart-leaved oxeye or yellow oxeye.
Each stem grows about 2 to 8 flowers.
It's a really fast growing plant. In winter the plants completely dies off above the ground, but in spring they start growing again. In summer the plants are between 120 and 150 in height.
The big, heart-shapped leaves and many yellow flowers make it an eye-catcher in my backyard (pun intended).
At first the flowers are quite flat, but they eventually become a bit more round. They have very interesting thin yellow petals.
Some of the the flowers have wilted already. They then turn into a brown ball.
But even when they are wilted they still look nice I think.
And what I like most of them is that they attract loads of flying insects. The vibrant yellow color really stands out.
This also is the main reason why I bought these plants a few years ago. We rented a house for the holidays and in the backyard there was this Oxeye plant with a couple of butterflies and bumblebees swarming around it.
I looked up the plant when we got home and bought some for my backyard.
And now I have them myself.
I must say that I haven't seen a single butterfly on them yet. There seem to be far less butterflies this year. I think the reason is because it has been raining quite a lot this spring and early summer.
Yesterday I did see a couple of bumblebees and other insects on the flowers, so I decided to grab my camera and macro lens.
And here is a close-up of one of the flowers.
The leaves also have a nice structure. Here I caught a fly that was taking a rest.
It just looks like this fly is waling on a yellow carpet 😄
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