This time of the year Ohio is strewn with many tall wildflowers along the country roads. I don’t have any in my yard anymore since the county filled the ditch and put in drain pipes. But in front of the woods next door I have a nice blend of Queen Anne’s Lace and perky blue chicory. The thistles are getting tall but no blooms yet.
I used to have day lilies, probably my favorite. The rural roads are awash in orange.
Dennis
I’ve got a bunch spread out all over the place, but I have no idea what they are. My favorites are ones that flower in my school colors. Every year I harvest as many seeds as I can and plant them in more places. My goal is flowers as far as you can see. Tall order around here.
We’re well past wildflower season in Texas.
I used to have naturalized daffodils and showy evening primrose in my yard, but you can’t keep those going if you’re not doing your own mowing, so I don’t get those anymore.
It’s interesting that all of the wild flowers mentioned in the OP (Queen Anne’s lace, chicory, orange daylily (Hemerocallis fulva ‘‘Europa’’) and probably the thistle also, are not native to the U.S. and are considered ‘‘invasive exotics’’.
They make attractive roadside plants. If someone could hybridize a less weedy version of chicory it’d be a terrific garden perennial.
Wild climbing roses. In all the lower bushes. Mr.Wrekker has tried snuffing them out. No success. It makes smile when I see them blooming on fence rows.
Jasmine and honeysuckle climbs anywhere it can. Wisteria is in taller trees. Lots of daylillies on the place. Wild heritage daffodils. I say they’re wild because I didn’t plant them. They multiply yearly. They smell so loud i can detect the aroma when I turn into my driveway when they’re blooming.
The wild bunch is mostly purple here. The lilacs come and go quickly, then there are lupines, morning glory, asters, hostas, something else I can’t name…
My favorite is jack-in-the-pulpit. It’s a shy green woodsy thing that wouldn’t survive this yard, but we find it in our travels. They’re so cute.
I’ve been letting milkweed run wild, even mowing around single plants in the yard. It can really get going after a few years. I just rip open the seed pods on a windy day and try to spread it out.
And yes, we do have lots of monarch butterflies. Sometimes I can find the chrysalises, they are very pretty.
Tons and tons of orange day lilies. Someone may have planted them originally, but some are growing where I know they weren’t planted. Their bloom time is ending right about now, except for one patch that blooms later than the rest. And some buttercups that I know weren’t planted. And some asparagus. I do have an asparagus patch that I planted, but I’m seeing a couple of small plants in other areas. Oh, and in the spring, violets.
This spring I got a few wildflower packs of seeds and just strew them in various places around the yard. I haven’t seen any come up.
Other than that, just trees. All sorts, especially maple. It’s a full-time job to get rid of them.
And then there’s bindweed. Can’t get rid of the damn things. They climb up everything, including the telephone poles, and now they’ve invaded the lawn.
Oh, we got plenty of weeds. But the two plants that invited themselves into the garden/yard and which are very welcome to stay are native British orchids, The common spotted orchid (in the front lawn) and the broad leaved helleborine (in the borders). Neither is in the least bit rare, but both are very nice to have.
j
We’ve been encouraging wildflowers in our yard for ~15 years or so; we live on several acres and you can’t see our house/yard from the road so we saw no reason to keep a tidy lawn. So it’s mostly what we call a “wildflower meadow.”
Nowadays we have tons of daisies, and the black-eyed susans have just started. Though not strictly wildflowers, the irises and lilies that were originally planted in beds have started spreading throughout the yard. Queen Anne’s lace has started, some Japanese bellflowers have show up out of nowhere, and also yellow goatweed. Earlier this year we had a nice forget-me-not crop, and we’ll see tansy in a few weeks.
There’s probably some I’m forgetting. We really have so much. It mostly looks nice, though towards the end of August we tend to lose most of the blooms and it looks like… a weed yard. I need to find something the blooms into the fall.
I have Ladie’s Tresses, a wild orchid at my little piece of Arkansas woods.
I believe Mrs. Plant (v.2.0) did away with them at my old place.
Oh, good lord. Never ends around here. Wild roses, wild dogwood trees all showy with blooms in early spring, wild privet scenting the air like a French bordello.
Bleeding hearts and foxglove by the hundreds, California poppies, Asiatic poppies. Queen Ann’s lace is ubiquitous, as is its much more deadly lookalike, wild hemlock. Trillium, wild iris, cornflowers, Dutchman’s breeches, grape hyacinth, blue and purple lupines, Cusick’s checker-mallow and woodland orchids. Ox Eye daisies are everywhere. (They are my nemesis.)
I have a few wild fuchsias, too.
Many more I know I am forgetting.
My mom converted her front yard to a wildflower garden decades ago: It looks great, and it’s a lot easier to maintain. The back, meanwhile, is a mixture of wood chips and wildflowers (to provide for the dog to go out in it).
Here in San Francisco we have a tiny yard (25’ wide by maybe 45’ deep). We get weeds from the neighbors, upon whom our yards are cheek by jowl, but those are dug up for the most part. The only actual wildflowers we can claim are California poppy. I would take them all out, but my husband loves them (“so cute!”). We have jasmine but it’s only there to try to hide the ugly chain link fence, and I like the smell. All the climbing or rambling roses are ones that I planted, for the same purpose (but not as successful at it).
We used to have a very local wildflower that bloomed around Labor Day in one corner of our yard. But then one year they weren’t there. 
I see them blooming in a ditch by a road near us and I’m tempted to grab some seeds once the blooms fade to bring them back.
But they really aren’t all that pretty.
There’s weeds that bloom around us, of course. E.g., Japanese honeysuckle. But that’s an annoying invasive vine that’s better off dead.
Flowering luxuriantly on roadsides around here (especially in late spring) is dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis). It comes in shades of purple, pink and white, flowers are fragrant, and leaves are thought by some to have aphrodisiac properties.
Sounds perfect, but of course it’s an Exotic Invasive Threat originally brought over from Europe.
The only wildflowers I have are dandelions (both varieties) milkweed andbthose goddmned goatheads which have a very pretty blossom that varies from white to lavender/purple and some that are white with lavender/purple streaks. I dream of one day actually having grass growing out there
It’s been a great year for wild flowers, the echinacea has spread out, so has the black eyed Susan’s, orange milkweed, swamp milkweed, joe pye weed, ironweed, button bush, boneset, the asters are getting tall but won’t bloom for awhile so very weedy looking. But the bees are all over them in fall. I’ve allowed staghorn sumac to go wild too. Can’t abide Queen Anne’s lace, or spotted knapweed, and there’s too much chicory. Sweet pea vines are ok but Asian variety is pulled. Clover is a nice ground cover I prefer it over vinca which is very invasive.
I’ve seen half dozen monarchs in flight and same amount of their caterpillars on milkweeds.
Our lakeshore has been converted to a natural shoreline using coir logs and planting native grasses, sedges , and wildflowers. Purple loostrife tries to gain hold but I pull those out. I like it wild in the yard we don’t have mower even, but I try very hard to spot invasives and get rid of them before they spread. The wildlife has moved in, snakes, frogs, turtles, dragons, damsels, some kind of wren is nesting in the lake bank.
It’s a much better option that preserves the shore from erosion whole providing habitat. That being said, muskrats also want to live there but we had to discourage them with a licensed trapper.
LOVE those lady tresses. I want some.
If they are not carnivorous!