Growth in the Prairie
Garden is proceeding at a
rapid rate. Plants are roughly a month
ahead of where they were last year. The
old portion of the Prairie
Garden was mowed the
first week of February and we’ve had above normal temperatures during the two
months since then. Plants that take
their growth cues from soil temperature have emerged at a time when the top
growth is still at risk from damage by a frost or freeze. I know from experience that some of these plants
cannot handle freezing and there will be a die-back of top growth when we get a
frost.
The most obvious plant in the Prairie Garden
at this time is the Western Sunflower.
These plants often survive the winter as a cluster of green basal
leaves, so it’s not surprising that they take off as soon as the spring
temperatures allow.
Western Sunflower is an aggressive plant and will soon
spread to take over just about any area.
It does produce viable seed, but most of the rapid expansion is through
far reaching rhizomes that produce new plants.
The result is a large colony of clones.
The grasses are coming on very quickly. I’m wondering if the grasses will give more
competition to the early blooming flowers.
This is a clump of Side-oats Gramma, which normally stays very short
until the mid-summer months.
The leaves of the False Aloe are rapidly elongating. These plants will produce flower stalks this
year if they are not knocked back by a freeze.
At this stage they are highly susceptible to damage by a hard frost.
My population of Wild Nodding Onion still hasn’t increased
in number. The only plants I have are
those protected by the wire cage. Most
of the seed produced by these plants has been scattered back into the garden,
but no more plants have emerged. I don’t
know if the seeds are failing to germinate or if predators are eating the
plants as quickly as they develop.
The first Prairie
Garden bloom this year is
the Hoary Puccoon. This is an early
plant that is pretty much on schedule, but it usually doesn’t have all of this
competing growth to deal with.
These young plants remain unidentified at the moment. I’ll keep a watch on them until they reach a
stage where I can either run them through the keys or I recognize what they
are. It’s not unusual for me to be
baffled by a young plant in its early stages of growth. One reason for this garden is to allow me to
watch things grow on a day-to-day basis, so that I’ll be able to identify a
plant the minute it sticks leaves above the ground.
Steve Wilson:
ReplyDelete"These young plants remain unidentified at the moment. I’ll keep a watch on them until they reach a stage where I can either run them through the keys or I recognize what they are."
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Reminds me of the Biblical Parable of the wheat and the weeds. When young they look like everything else. As they mature you can identify them by their fruits.
I noticed you had a cage around your Nodding Onions. Do the herbivores love to eat them ? I only wished our season here in Sweden could progress as far as yours. It's still freezing here lately.
Thanks , Kevin
I think your unidentified one may be Dianthus armeria. I think of it as an innocuous adventive species, but knowing that you find non-natives anathema, this would be a good one to check up on for pulling later.
ReplyDeleteI tried germinating Nodding Onions over the winter. I have them planted in the greenhouse now but so far none have grown.
ReplyDeleteIs it to early for me to distinguish my prarie plants from weeds?
ReplyDeleteHi Kevin. Nodding Wild Onion seems to be a favorite of several local animals. Without the cage, they would probably disappear over night.
ReplyDeleteOur temperature is falling fast tonight, so I expect to see frost in the morning.
Thanks James. Dianthus armeria is common here, so it could easily have slipped into the garden. I'll keep an eye on it.
Hi Biodiverse Gardens. I've germinated Nodding Wild Onion seed in pots on two occasions. The onions in the cage are from the first attempt and the results of the second attempt are still in their pot. I planted the seed in late summer and left the pots sitting outside over the winter. About 20 percent of the planted seed actually produced plants.
Hi Mike. A lot of what you planted is just now germinating. It’ll be another month or six weeks before things are easily recognizable.