Tag: prairie

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Sunday field trip to Lexington WMA

Butterfly milkweed.
Wild heliotrope.
Had leaves like greenthread but a yellow center on flower.
Compass plants all facing what we think was east.
Bigger view of the compass plant valley.
A megachilid bee on butterfly milkweed!
A whole field of Echinacea!
Rosa sp.
I know this one. I’ll look it up. Edit: wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), thanks Mom 🙂
Happy!!!!
A Dun Skipper on prairie bluets.
Asclepias viridiflora (thanks Abby and Mom!)
Shade good for fluffy dog.
Another view of the Echinacea field.
Note the matching orange dog in background.
I remember this plant.
She tried to get humans to join her but we’re no fun.
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Earwig battle

Several interested earwigs on oil jar edges and a few already in oil! Yay!

Don’t think too hard, earwig. It’s totally fine.

Less yay: more earwigs eating the Peruvian ground cherry (which is farthest from the oil).

More yay: big beautiful toad patrolling the backyard prairie.

An excellent friend.
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Transplanting bluets

There is a nice patch of bluets (Houstonia pusilla) in the front side yard. Eventually I want to get rid of the lawn in this area, so I tested transplanting some to the backyard.

I got three clumps.
Close up
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Native seed stratification success

Several seeds I pulled out of the fridge recently are sprouting in their humid containers so we planted them today!

Liatris mucronata from Mom!  Yay!
The yucca has a really long root! Mom, is this Arkansas yucca?  It’s the one from your house.
The green milkweed (Asclepias viridis) had tons of seeds sprouting and a very brushy or fluffy root for each seedling.  We put them root down, I just wanted to show the fluffy root here. Dad got these seeds for me!
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Last book report for tonight I promise: “Gardening with Prairie Plants” by Sally Wasowski

Gardening with Prairie Plants was SO BEAUTIFUL. Mom gave it to me a few weeks ago and it was just filled with magnificent pictures of prairies and prairie gardens throughout the Great Plains. I really also liked how it paid attention to the different regions (wetter and drier, north and south), so it has lots of good info on plants native to each region. It mentioned some medicinal and edible uses of native plants too though it refers to other more complete sources. Did I mention the prairie photos? Definitely added to the favorite references spreadsheet.