Minnesota State Flower

Me and Mike headed up to Itasca State Park hoping to view the state flower blooming in it's natural environment. I knew the yellows were blooming, which are usually earlier than the pink and whites, so I thought we could try and at least get some photos of the yellows. Last year, the pink and whites didn't bloom until the 4th of July.

One bad thing about going to Itasca is there is A LOT of poison ivy in the same area as the lady slippers. The last two years, I have gotten it really bad and Alex (my son) did too last year. So armed with long pants and sleeves and knee pads we arrived and were greeted with pink and whites in the ditches in the park. They were just starting to bloom in some of the more popular clumps that I knew of.

We hit all the hot spots and were rewarded with some spectacular displays of this gorgeous orchid. It sure is easy to understand why this flower was picked as our state flower after seeing it in real life.

The wild roses were blooming everywhere and we smelled roses all day long, what a treat!

The Blue Flag Irises were even blooming, along with the Marsh Marigolds, what luck we had!

It sure was worth the 4 hour drive! As we were leaving the park, we came across some really big patches of pink and whites that were all blooming! Two hours south, when we were near Long Prairie, I spotted a whole ditch full of pink and whites! Guess next year we don't have to drive so far.