Mickey Mouse Plant

Mickey Mouse Plant or Solanum Mammosum

A fun houseplant to collect, Mickey Mouse plant provides almost all seasons' interest. Gorgeous bright yellow blossoms, that then has green seeds that ripen to a shiny black groupings over sepals that turn bright red giving this plant its common name! This ornamental shrub invades bushlands and forms dense thickets which are difficult to remove. It has yellow flowers and later black seeds with red sepals still attached and sometimes mistaken for flower. This is one of those weeds that doesn't respond very well to control with glyphosate. A basal bark application of fluroxypyr and diesel is generally the most effective control technique for this weed.

Cactus

Cactus Plants

When you think of cactus, you don't think 'flowers' - but that's what these are. Prickly cactus blooms are quite pretty, and serve as food for plenty of wildlife species! 

White Aster

White Aster Flower

Symphyotrichum ericoides, white heath aster, white aster, or heath aster is another plant that was busy blooming just before the big freeze. In this case, though, it was a fairly normal thing, since it usually blooms in late summer and fall.

As a member of the aster family, this herbaceous perennial has white, daisy-like composite flowers. It spreads slowly by rhizomes to form small bushes. It is a common plant and it found throughout most of eastern North America, typically in dry sandy and gravelly soils.