i think of minnesota as mostly green in the summer, and colorful in the fall.  but as we drove north to pick up our daughter at camp, all the roadsides for 200 miles were brilliantly strewn with wildflowers: red-orange and yellow hawkweed, white and yellow daisies, yellow birdsfoot trefoil, purple clover, blue flag irises, and great heads of pink and purple lupine. a feast for nectar-hungry pollinators, and for asphalt-weary eyes.

common summer wildflowers of northern minnesota

ely, minnesota