Visiting Nearby Grasslands - A Peek Into Other Places and Times

As I work to re-establish a reasonably functional prairie on our Back 5, one of my constant inner questions is, "What was here originally?"  It's hard to know, since years of use as a pasture, including significant overgrazing for at least the last few years, had removed most of the tastier plants from the existing plant palette and substituted weedier ones by the time we purchased the property.  In a region where tallgrass prairie is just beginning to morph into midgrass prairie, there were essentially no clumps of prairie grass at all in that Back 5 acres.  The primary forbs were green antelopehorn, western ragweed, Baldwin's ironweed, yarrow, and white sage - all plants that cattle don't care for, which tend to grow more strongly as their competition is munched away. 

So, to see what we're missing in our palette, I watch the ditches for vegetative clues (but our ditches have been denuded of perennials by the County road crews who, I am convinced, consider them to be their personal lawn spaces).  I look in pastures as we drive by.  And occasionally I'm lucky enough to be invited to walk through and explore nearby pastures.  That's when I get my best clues.

A fellow Sedgwick County Extension Master Gardener, Sid, extended one of those lucky invitations to me for last Friday morning.  So, of course, I went.  I explored his pasture last June, too, about 2 weeks earlier in the growing season than this year.  What would I see again?  Would I see anything new?

Sid and his wife live on land that was homesteaded by his ancestress - a legendary matriarch, a recent widow at the time she homesteaded, who built a house in the middle of a section of land so that each of her 4 sons would have a quarter section for themselves when they reached adulthood.   With the land being in the same family for generations now, there is a sense of continuity of ownership, an understanding of how the land has been utilized over the years, that is often lacking in land that has changed ownership many times.

One of the things Sid wanted to show me were the patches of black-eyed Susan he'd successfully created in his lawn simply by waiting last summer until the black-eyed Susan had set seed, then mowing in a pattern that concentrated the seed into the areas where he wanted it.

The patches were beautiful - and filled with pollinators when we examined the flowers up close.

Next we went out into the pasture.  Many of the plants were ones I'd seen last year:  Junegrass, blue wild indigo (with all the leaves eaten off this summer), cream wild indigo, a single bloom of catclaw sensitive briar, purple poppy mallow, yarrow, spiderwort, leadplant.....

This year I noticed a few more plants blooming, too, that I hadn't noticed last year.  For example, the plant pictured above is woolly verbena (Verbena stricta) growing along the trail that the cattle use most frequently.  Woolly verbena has deep roots and is very drought tolerant, but it's bitter tasting, so the cattle don't eat it and it tends to increase in pastures.

I also noticed both white and purple prairie clovers, Dalea candida and Dalea purpurea.

Sid pointed out narrow-leafed milkweed (Asclepias stenophylla), ...

where I was lucky enough to catch a milkweed longhorn (Tetraopes sp.) and a longhorned grasshopper nymph hanging out together.  Do you see the grasshopper nymph almost mirroring the position of the milkweed beetle, a few inches up and to the left?

Another blossom that caught my eye on Friday was the tall, pink spike of tickclover (Desmodium sp.).  Not realizing that there were 4 possible species to be found in our area of Kansas, I didn't look at either the blooms or the leaves very closely.  I'll have to return to identify this species more accurately, although I strongly suspect it's Illinois tickclover (Desmodium illinoense).

I also saw a little, annual, yellow flax (Linum sulcatum), that I've seen in our Back 5 once or twice over the years, and prairie petunia, a.k.a. fringe-leaf ruellia, (Ruellia humilis).  The latter has become one of my favorites as I've watched it bloom over and over again, rather hidden down in the grass, not complaining despite extreme heat and crushing drought.  I'd love to get some prairie petunia started in my flower beds, but I haven't been able to collect seed pods or to transplant successfully so far.

Most fun of all, this year the sand plums (Prunus angustifolia) were sporting a bumper crop of fruit, which was well into ripening.   Sid picked a couple handfuls and we enjoyed a delicious taste of the prairie to go along with our visual feast.

On the way back to the cool of the lawn chairs sitting in the breezy shade, I glimpsed a carpet of golden yellow shining through the trees.  When I asked about it, Sid responded that it was "just that weed", from which description I recognized plains coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), a pretty annual that grows primarily in ditches and crop fields around here.  As we walked, I noticed a single, straggly plant of it along the path we were following.


I mentioned that I loved plains coreopsis, but that I didn't have much of it growing on our property.  Sid was surprised by that, since it is so common in "wild areas" around here, but actually I wasn't surprised at all.  Plains coreopsis is an annual or very short-lived perennial and, as such, is basically an early successional plant.  We don't have much bare ground on our property where it might take root.

As I started to talk about plant succession, it occurred to me that many gardeners aren't very familiar with the concept of succession, and it's a concept that I find VERY useful in understanding plant behavior in the garden.  This post is long enough...but succession sounds like a great topic for a post in the near future!  I doubt you'll ever look at weeds the same way, once you learn about this interesting concept.

Early June Plant Combination Ideas for a Prairie Garden

Despite the beauty and hardiness of native plants, they are still relative newcomers to the garden scene.  Consequently, there aren't very many "tried and true" combinations of native perennials (and/or annuals) that bloom concurrently for the best garden bed displays.

I've been trying to capture combinations that appeal to me when I see them, which is usually a rather serendipitous occurrence.  Here, for example, is a pairing that I found last week, at the Sedgwick County Extension Arboretum in Wichita....

The bluish-purple of the leadplant (Amorpha canescens) blossoms, with their orange anthers, really struck me when I found them in close proximity to the brilliant orange blooms of butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa).  I believe this was an accidental planting - the butterfly milkweed had moved here after originally being planted about 20 feet away, but what a lucky accident!  The leadplant's spiky sprays of grayish, tiny leaved foliage make a nice counter to the rounded mound of the bright green butterfly milkweed, too.  Best of all, these two prairie natives require essentially identical conditions, so where one does well, the other one should too.

Nearby the leadplant-butterfly milkweed pairing in the Arboretum was Husker Red Penstemon (Penstemon digitalis 'Husker Red') planted in front of bloody cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum). 

While I would personally put the penstemon either in back of or beside the cranesbill, the echoes of purple between both plants and the overlapping bloom times, as well as contrasting foliage and plant shapes, made a pleasing combination to my eye.  One of the best things about this combination is that it will do well in part shade, which is rather rare among plants that do well on the prairie.  By the way, the bloody cranesbill is not native to North America, but it's been selected as one of the Great Plants of the Great Plains and there are others in the Geranium genus that are native here.

Some other plants blooming in the prairie right now that could be creatively combined for special garden displays:

Purple horsemint, aka lemon beebalm (Monarda citriodora), an annual that reseeds pleasantly.

Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), a well known, short-lived, garden perennial.

Catclaw Sensitive Briar (Mimosa quadrivalvis), a rather sprawling perennial with classic mimosa leaves and spectacular bright pink flowers.

Spiderwort (Tradescantia spp.), which provide both a nice linear foliage and beautiful blue blooms.

Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriacus), Smooth Milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii), and/or Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa), 3 milkweeds of open grasslands that sport large pink pompoms of blossoms with incredibly sweet fragrance.  Shown in this photo is smooth milkweed growing naturally in a grassland; all 3 species look very similar in general appearance and all 3 are excellent monarch larval plants.  Being good larval plants means their foliage can get quite ratty by the end of summer so planting them amidst a "filler" like aster is probably a good idea.  All 3 will form open colonies.

Purple Poppy Mallow (Callirhoe involucrata), also called wine cup, which brings a strong magenta blossom to the mix.  Its trailing stems can meander between other plants, but in the prairie they often seem to climb UP its neighbors to provide the plant with the sun it needs.  It's not a heavy or a smothering plant, so this can actually work quite well and look very attractive.

Echinaceas, the classic prairie coneflowers.  While Black-sampson (Echinacea angustifolia) is the native here in south central Kansas, there are many other Echinaceas available that will do well in prairie gardens, including Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) and Yellow Coneflower (Echinacea paradoxa), which are both relatively easy to find in nurseries and garden centers.  Pictured here, of course, is yellow coneflower.  Echinaceas are a North American genus.

There are other native wildflowers that are blooming right now, but these are the main prairie forbs that are currently blooming in my yard and gardens.  What combinations would you put together?! 

Enigmatic: Spring on the Prairie

If you want lush photos of beautiful spring plants in March, don't look to the prairie.

Here are my lush, spring plants.  Note:  they are daffodils...and they are not native.  On the plus side, last weekend's snow didn't phase them in the least.  These weren't in bloom yet when the snow hit, but the buds were ready to go.  The snow melted.  We got one day of 60+ degree temperatures...and voila!

This little cluster is Tete-a-Tete.

On the prairie, the plants are much wiser.  Few are really greening up yet, although basal rosettes that have been visible all winter are beginning to wake up, shrug a little, and start to think about putting on some growth.

These ruffly, little, gray-green cuties are young wavy-leaf thistle (Cirsium undulatum), ready for the magic of spring to call them skyward.  One of the native prairie thistles, wavy-leaf is easy to identify by the namesake curling edges of its leaves and by their attractive color.  It is not invasive.

Another easy-to-identify basal rosette belongs to yarrow (Achillea millefolium).  I love the delicate looking (but tough as nails), ferny leaves that somehow manage to survive everything that winter throws at them.  By the way, I apologize for the distracting bisection of the photo:  a perfect example of my mind erasing something mentally as I took the picture.  The camera lens, unfortunately, doesn't perform the same function!

When we first moved out here to Patchwork Prairie, I noticed these basal rosettes in winter and thought that I was seeing black-eyed Susans...just a bit hairier than normal.   As spring progressed, it was obvious that this wasn't, in fact, a Rudbeckia of any sort; I eventually learned to identify it as hairy hawkweed (Hieracium longipilum).  Now, of course, I can't believe I ever mistook the two!

Despite its unique leaves, to my eyes the flowers of hairy hawkweed are rather blah  - a very open cluster of small, yellow, daisy-like blooms held high above the plant on a thin stem.  Truthfully, those leaves are much more interesting!    I've even found myself mistaking the winter rosettes for dead animal carcases.  I'm not sure what benefit that resemblance would give them, but surely there's some sort of positive gain for the plant there.

Speaking of blah, I think that these little, rather nondescript, green rosettes ARE actually black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta).  Note last year's seedhead on the ground in front of the rosette at the bottom....

The last winter rosette that I will share from this morning's walkabout is, I think, velvety gaura (Gaura mollis).  It's quite attractive, bearing a striking resemblance to a small, green, cabbage rose.  I've qualified my identification, though, since the leaves don't have quite the same velvety feel that later leaves will have.  I haven't watched this plant grow from early spring on, so I'm a bit more tentative here.

In the draw, a few other plants - native plants - are beginning to put forth tiny leaves:  the clove currant, for example, and the eastern wahoo.  None of them, however, are really getting exuberant yet.  The prairie doesn't encourage early spring exuberance.  There's time for that when spring is a little more advanced...and certain.

The Bounteous Black Susan Feast

Last Monday when I did my big walkabout, I noticed that the black-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, had started blooming.  These cheerful yellow, daisy-like flowers with their dark purplish brown centers are short-lived perennials that are often used as garden plants as well.

Best of all, black-eyed Susans are native here!  Which means they form a meaningful and important part of the chain of life, hosting insects and other creatures, who in turn provide food for animals further up the food chain.  The following are some of the insects that I saw on the black-eyed Susans last Monday, one hour out of one day.  There were certainly more to be seen, but I'm only including those with moderately clear photographs.

To save space and keep me safe from carpal tunnel syndrome, I will abbreviate the name of the plant to bes (black-eyed Susan) and the name of the flower to besb (as in black-eyed Susan bloom) for the rest of this post.  I'm italicizing the abbreviations just so that you know I haven't made a typo, not because this is a scientific name or convention of any sort.

The very first clump of bes that I came upon was underneath the (sadly) empty martin house directly behind the courtyard.  There was one fading besb in the grouping, a couple fully open blooms, and many buds either just beginning to open or promising future flowers.  Those first few besb yielded...

...a fly with spotted wings and a beetle that I think may be a softwinged flower beetle (Family: Melyridae), as discussed in my friend Professor Roush's recent (and amusing) post on the same.  According to my Insects in Kansas book, melyrid beetles are actually carnivorous, an alternate way of saying they are predators.

Even the one fading besb in that first group was hosting an ant, 2 beetles that may or may not be melyrids, and another mystery insect that fell off when I tried to get a better view of it.

The next photo I have of a besb shows a pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos) nectaring on it, as well as two distinctly different species of beetles.  The right hand beetle may be another of the melyrids, but the left hand beetle is not, looking more like a weevil in a different shot, but like some flat, broad unknown in this photograph.

Even this small, rather malformed besb was providing nectar to a male common checkered-skipper (Pyrgus communis).  The female of this skipper species looks similar, but is distinctly darker in color.  As caterpillars, common checkered-skippers feed on mallow family plants, including hollyhock and poppymallow.

An orange sulfur (Colias eurytheme) found this fresh besb to his liking...

...while a short distance away, this eight spotted flower-loving longhorn (Typocerus octonotatus) was not about to leave its besb, even with a giant human peering at it through a big black eye.  (And, yes, eight spotted flower-loving longhorn is the official common name for this beetle!  Quite a mouthful, isn't it?!)  This species of longhorned beetle feeds on native grasses in its larval stage, so it's most commonly seen on prairies.

And, much as I hate to end on a blurry note, the final besb that I photographed last Monday had both a solitary bee and another beetle on it, even though this bloom, again, seemed well past visual prime.

So the final tally for different species of insects on black-eyed Susan on that one hour walkabout was 3 different kinds of butterflies and/or skippers (pearl crescent, common checkered-skipper, and orange sulfur), at least 3 different species of beetles, a fly, an ant, a mystery insect and a solitary bee.  That I noticed and was able to photograph with varying degrees of clarity.

Hardly extraordinary...yet good to see.  These days, the beauty of flowers seems somehow incomplete to me without insects actively providing extra movement, richness, and a deep sense of their imbeddedness in the local ecosystem.