She's Not a Phlox.
Masquerading as native phlox this Dame’s Rocket is taking over the high brush and grasses alongside the trail. Yes, she’s kind of pretty with her 4-petaled white, pink, and lavender flowers (phlox has 5 petals), and she has an intoxicatingly sweet nighttime fragrance - but she’s a nuisance.
Dame’s Rocket, or hesperis matronalis, is a prolific bloomer. A single plant produces copious amounts of seeds and once established it forms massive colonies... more accurately, infestations. It grows fast and furious and chokes out other native wildflowers and plants, creating a monoculture that reduces food for birds, butterflies and other small creatures.
"Heading as we are into that most delirious of garden seasons, early summer, I’ve been enjoying the lovely clouds of Dame’s Rocket that are blooming everywhere now. My enjoyment is guilty, so I enjoy it stealthily, surreptitiously, as it personifies the beauty of wildflowers to me, wayward and windblown, clean and lacy."
Fran Manos
Dame’s Rocket is on the “Eradicate” list in Minnesota and the DNR encourages people to pull them up by the roots in early spring so they can’t produce seeds and spread.
Too bad, these blooms are already wayward and windblown - but I’m going to come back tonight and breathe deeply.
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