Island Renovation: Part I

Posted on December 29, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

During December Scott and I have been working on renovating and restoring the edges of the pond island. This beloved spot is where children like to feed the ducks and turtles, where couples get engagement pictures taken, and where visitors can spend a quiet moment near the water. Over the past 40 years it has eroded away in many places. Thanks to a grant from the Central Kansas Community Foundation and a generous anonymous matching donation, we are able to strengthen the island banks and keep it in good shape for years to come.

Rock Steady

The edges of the island were originally made of a redwood retaining wall, backfilled with rock and soil. While the redwood wall has stayed remarkably intact, the material behind it has eroded away. There was over a six foot gap in some places between where the bank used to be and where it is now! All that material has floated downstream during flood events and times of high flow. We are filling in these gaps with concrete and brick rubble.

First we added rock to fill the gap between the bank and the retaining wall. This gap was 3 to 6 feet in some places. Then we dumped and raked dirt over this rock to form a seed bed for grasses and wildflowers.

Adding Soil

On top of the rock goes 4-8 inches of soil. This area will be home to a continuation of the prairie grasses and forbs currently growing on the island. Switchgrass, dotted blazing star, and purple prairie clover are already growing well on the higher areas of the island. I hope prairie cordgrass, river oats and Kansas gayfeather will colonize lower portions of our new island edge in the coming years.

We will seed this area, as well as allow the neighboring plantings to spread naturally into it. Controlling invasive weeds here will be a high priority next spring and summer as this soil likely contains unfamiliar weed seeds, some of which may be noxious or highly invasive.

Out of Bounds

We are also dumping rubble on the outside of the redwood retaining board. This will help stop erosion, support the board in light of all the new weight being dumped behind it, and create a substrate for future aquatic plants. In spring that outer rock layer will become a substrate for planting new aquatic species. We hope to add hibiscus, lizards tail, equisetum, marsh marigold, pickerel weed, and other native pond plants.

The red line shows the wooden retaining wall. This was the original bank, and it has now been restored with rock and a layer of soil on top. By adding rock on the outside of that, we are able to strengthen it even more and hopefully create a useable substrate to hold future aquatic plantings.

Maintaining the grounds is a big job. The needed repairs never end, and it can get expensive. Donations, memberships, FloraKansas purchases, and all the other ways you support the Dyck Arboretum helps keep these acres safe and accessible to the community.

Thank you to all who gave to this pond renovation initiative. Keep your eyes peeled for future updates on the planting and growth of this new pond edge!

O Cedar Tree, O Cedar Tree

Posted on December 1, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

Here is a repost from a few years ago about using local cedar trees for your Christmas decoration this year, for the ecological benefits and the fun folksy style!

This past weekend I cut down a red cedar to use as my Christmas tree; just the right shape and size and with the right amount of character. I feel great about cutting one of these trees out of the wild (an Arboretum staffer condoning tree felling? Yes!). Red cedars are beautiful, strung with lights and tinsel, but they have become a real pest in the Great Plains ecosystem. Here are a few reasons to skip the plastic tree or spruce farm and simply cut yourself a cedar!

Any Christmas tree, cedar or artificial, can benefit from some ecologically conscious decorations. Dried grass and seed heads of prairie plants look magical amongst warm white lights, but are biodegradable.

Cedars have become invasive

Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is native to Kansas and much of central and eastern North America. Native though they are, the USDA labels cedars as invasive, and rightfully so. Too many pastures and meadows are overgrown with cedars, choking out native grasses and wildflowers. Without natural wildfires and regular controlled burns, cedars have been allowed to flourish in places that historically would not have been suitable. The tallgrass prairie is one of the most rare and endangered ecosystems in the world, and the invasion of cedars upon open grasslands decreases species richness, changes soil composition and even threatens indigenous wildlife. If you are a landowner looking to do maintenance of your grassland or clear it of cedar trees, Dyck Arboretum can provide helpful information.

The woody plants in this photo have completely run amuck in a landscape that should be dominated by grass. Randy Rodgers has a wonderful essay here on the impacts of trees encroaching on the prairie.

Cedars degrade the prairie ecosystem

Grassland dependent birds, insects and small mammals become displaced or outcompeted when red cedars populate formerly open land. The University of Nebraska has compiled a lot of data on this subject at The Eastern Red Cedar Science Literacy Project, where you can find informative and alarming tidbits like:

“Grassland birds are the most rapidly declining avian guild in North America (Fuhlendorf et al. 2012) and are rarely observed once juniper exceeds 10% of land cover (Chapman et al. 2004).” (Twidwell et al. 2013)

and…

“An increase in overstory cover from 0% to 30% red cedar can change a species-rich prairie community to a depauperate community dominated by 1 (small mammal) species, Peromyscus leucopus.” (Horncastle et al. 2005)

Endangered and vulnerable species like the American burying beetle and the greater prairie chicken are only further threatened by the turnover of grassland to cedar forests. Cedars do have redeeming qualities – winter shelter and forage for birds, drought tolerance and erosion control. Red cedars certainly have their place in a hedgerow or small grove, but should be carefully limited from spreading.

Cedar trees make prescribed burning a little tricky, and can exacerbate wildfires by sending up flames much higher than other grassland plants do.

*My coworker Brad has some great bumper stickers that encourage regular prescribed burns to prevent cedar overgrowth.*

Cedars are a ‘green’ choice

For all the aforementioned reasons, cutting a cedar for a Christmas tree is already a very ecologically conscious decision. But there is more! Unlike plastic trees, cedars are biodegradable and can be used for firewood or garden mulch. Also note that conventional Christmas tree farms providing spruce or firs require lots of resources:

clearing/agricultural development of land
years of regular water input
pesticides to keep needles bug free
shipping and fuel costs to get the trees to distributors around the country

Why don’t we skip all that frivolous resource usage and cut down some of these pesky cedars instead? You can feel good about a tree that’s low on carbon waste but high in old-fashioned, folksy quality.

Get permission from a farmer, landowner or your county land management officials before you start cutting. They will likely be happy to get rid of one, and you may get it for free (more money for gifts, yippee!) and enjoy a lovely, cedar-scented home this holiday.

Calling it Cuts: Tree Care

Posted on November 3, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

If you have been walking at the Arboretum lately you may have noticed some bare spots. Some big bare spots. We have been cutting down dead trees and clearing brush. It can be sad to say goodbye to something that has been a part of our landscape for so many years; casting shade, catching wind, housing birds. But there are lots of great reasons to break out the chainsaw and cut. Not sure when the time is right for tree care? Here are some guidelines.

*Safety first! Make sure you are using proper eye and ear protection before you embark on your tree felling adventures.*
*And don’t go it alone if you can help it — enlist help from family and friends to be spotters and extra hands in case things get dicey.*

Disease

A tree harboring disease has got to go. Weather it is in an Arboretum or a neighborhood, diseased trees can sometimes spread their illnesses and cause a lot of damage. Be they mites, fungus, or viral pathogens, keep an eye out for health problems. Certain diseases, like pine wilt, that are spread by nematodes or beetles require the burning of affected wood to prohibit the spread of the disease to other trees. Be kind to your neighbors and dispose of wood properly to avoid contagion.

*This pine was slowly dying, and was finally cut down to make room from a row of bald cypress in this area. A naturally wet and clayey spot, they should preform much better here than pines.*

Crowding

A good tree in a bad place is not a good tree at all. We have lots of volunteer trees around the Arboretum thanks to a healthy squirrel population. But not all these saplings live to see old age. We cut truckloads of volunteer trees, even desirable oak and maple species, if they aren’t in the right location. Our goal here at the Arb is to create a naturalistic, not exactly ‘natural’ environment. This means curating and editing where trees are allowed to grow, and what species we want to showcase. Because our prairie biome depends on fire and grazing to keep woody species at bay, any area not exposed to those controls turns into an unmanageable forest pretty quick! In your own yard, choose carefully the species and placement of the trees you allow to sprout, and get rid of the rest. This will not only create a more aesthetically pleasing affect, it also allows you to eliminate non-native or invasive species.

This beautiful burr oak was 6 inches around and 12 feet tall, but had grown up in an inconvenient area too close to our other mature trees. It can be painful to cut down a specimen like this, but it is necessary to create well-spaced plantings.

Damage, Age, and Safety

A once beautiful Amur maple has slowly deteriorated over the last 3 years. I left it standing, however, because of the cavities and knots on its branches. Not only did it provide habitat for birds and bugs, but it had a nice architectural shape that was interesting even in death. Now that we have ideas for a replacement, I finally cut it down.

We all get old. And certain tree species don’t age gracefully. From ice storm damage to weak wood, geriatric trees pose a special maintenance dilemma. How to preserve the healthy part of the tree, the shape, and the form, but cut out the dead? I am a lassiez-faire arborist, meaning I prefer to leave a bit of dead wood whenever possible. If the limb is not diseased and does not pose a hazard to nearby trees, why not leave it as habitat? Cavity nesting birds need dead wood to make their nests out of, and insects make their home in there, becoming food for hungry woodpeckers and chickadees. However, if limbs are dangling precariously or pose a safety hazard near structures or walkways, it must be cut immediately.

Discovering Host Plants

Posted on October 20, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

My phone is chock full of caterpillar photos. It seems I am constantly stooping down to examine another caterpillar, and to document what it is eating. I am a big fan of all insects, but especially these charismatic transformers. With their plump bodies and endless colors, it is not hard to see why people are becoming more interested in attracting them to the garden.

*Viceroy caterpillars can be hard to spot. They disguise themselves as bird poo to appear less appetizing, and it works!*
*This one was spotted just off the sidewalk at the Arb eating willow leaves.*

Host plants are a key part of that process. Caterpillars of all kinds often have a specific food plant or plant family that they need to survive. While I am familiar with monarchs on milkweed and swallowtails on parsley, there is a whole world of interesting host plants out there to utilize in the landscape.

Potluck

My house cats can be picky eaters, but caterpillars are even worse. Many of these little creatures can only feed on a handful of plant species. Their mothers may have to fly miles and miles to find the right plant to lay her eggs on. That is why it is so important to support the native insects of your area by gardening with the native plants they have evolved with for millennia.

Recently I added a few new host plants to my mental list of must-haves for caterpillar habitat.

Aspens and willows for viceroy butterflies
Primrose and lythrum for sphinx moths
Baptisia for broom moths
Sumac for spotted datanas

*This Viceroy (*Limentis archippus) caterpillar was found feeding on our aspen trees during the FloraKansas sale. I was lucky enough to see it transform from a young brown instar, changing colors as it matured to an older instar, and then fresh out of the chrysalis and flying away!

*A group of white-lined sphinx moths devoured a primrose patch. They also like to chow down on winged lythrum (Lythrum alatum), a great native plant for wet areas.*

*Genista broom moth caterpillars (*Uresiphita reversalis) are a cheery shade of yellow. They love Baptisia and can make the plants look quite ragged. But, by the time these caterpillars are feeding heavily in midsummer, the Baptisia has already bloomed and is done for the season anyway.

*These spotted datana (*Datana perspicua) caterpillars are gregarious feeders, meaning you usually find them in groups with their siblings. They munched away on this aromatic sumac (Rhus aromatica) for a few days, and tripled in size!

Appreciate, Don’t Hate

As my knowledge of host plants grows, so does my appreciation for native plants and the intricate ecosystem they support. I am so encouraged to hear more people calling them friends rather than foes, and wanting to identify and observe rather than squish and poison. It is always best practice to pause before sprinkling that pesticide – your garden will thank you, since most caterpillars do more good than harm. Changing our perspective about caterpillars, and all insects, is key to maintaining a functional, healthy food web. If you are interested in finding more caterpillars in your Kansas landscape, reach out to the staff at Dyck Arboretum for consultation, follow our Facebook and Instagram accounts for educational content, and mark your calendars for next spring’s FloraKansas fundraiser!

Army Worms

Posted on August 18, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

The Arboretum is under siege! An army has invaded, demanding we relinquish our lawns! Army worms, that is. These pesky creatures can cause major damage, and they unfortunately have a taste for fescue. Last week we came upon a sidewalk full of worms, crawling out of the lawn in search of more food. The grass was a sea of them, their tiny movements making it seem like the ground was alive.

*Close up of a fall army worm* Spodoptera frugiperda.
*Army worms have a distinctive ‘Y’ marking on their heads*
*and are usually found feeding in groups.*

To Spray or Not to Spray

I am always a big advocate of lassez-faire when it comes to controlling insect populations. After all, “plants are meant to be eaten”, right? And every insect has its place in the food web to keep our ecosystem thriving. I say this every time our members call asking about why their coneflowers have holes in the leaves, or why their Zizia has been defoliated. I tell them not to panic, that bugs are good to have in a garden, and that with enough good habitat natural predators will help keep the populations in check.

But when populations explode overnight, it can rightly cause concern. Native perennial flowers have deep tap roots that can reach 10 ft deep and beyond, which means they easily recover from a bit of nibbling. Fescue does not. The root zone is often less than 2ft, and in the heat of summer it can get even shorter. These little bugs can cause big damage! But luckily they rarely kill the grass. According to KSU Extension and Research, they don’t usually eat into the crown of the plant, rather move on to more tender greens. This means the plant can regrow and recover once they leave.

Fall armyworms seldom kill grass ---- rather, than nubbing a plant
down to the crown and growing point, larvae will select a more tender adjacent grass
blade to feed upon. Of course, under heavy feeding pressure, larvae may be forced to
feed deeper down on a plant, but usually, when the food supply becomes scarce or
"tough", the larvae will move "in mass" to adjacent areas where there is a "fresh stand"
of food to feed on.

- Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service

*Army worm damage looks a lot like drought stress at first glance. The grass turns patchy and brown.*
*This lawn was green and lush 72 hours before this photo was taken, an example of how quickly these little worms can feed.*

*Fescue at the Dyck Arboretum, beginning to resprout on August 18, 3 to 4 days after the army worms have finished feeding*.
*Stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks.*

Use a Targeted Pesticide

Insecticides containing acephate and spinosad are effective at killing caterpillars, but we opt for friendlier treatments since these are known to harm the bees, birds and butterflies that call the Arboretum home. To avoid unnecessary kill off of non-target insects, I use Bt: Bacillus thuringiensis. This is a biological pesticide that uses bacteria to infect the gut of the army worm. In the alkaline gut environment of insects, it turns toxic and gives them a terminal tummy ache. We also use this around the Arboretum to keep bagworm populations in check when they start to overwhelm our cedar trees. According to current research on Bt, it is non-toxic to humans, pets, birds, and fish. It also has a short life once sprayed, which means reapplication is necessary, but also ensures you aren’t killing more insects than you intended to.

Monoculture Dilema

This is the precisely the problem with monoculture lawns. They require consistent maintenance, chemical and physical, to achieve that uniform, western European ideal of ‘perfection’. As we consider seeding new grassy areas of the Arboretum, we may be looking to a fescue mix, or a seed mix that includes sedges and native grasses together. This means that if an infestation comes along, hopefully not all species in that mix will be palatable and leave some green behind while the rest of the species recover.

If you see a few army worms here and there, don’t panic. Only large populations require a chemical response. But to those of you who will encounter them by the millions this summer like I did, good luck!

Garden Retreat

Posted on July 28, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

As much as we love our work at the Arboretum, sometimes the staff need to get out and about! Once or twice a year we take a staff retreat, spending a day in leisure time together. We eat, laugh, and explore new places. We often visit other gardens or notable landscapes on these retreat days. Luckily, Wichita has two great locations to see beautiful gardens: Botanica and the Wichita Art Museum. Click here to learn more about how your Dyck Arboretum membership gives you free admission to these places.

Mi Garden et Su Garden

Visiting other gardens is always a treat for us plant nerds, and Botanica never disappoints. It has seventeen acres of sprawling gardens including the Chinese Friendship garden, a woodland glade, a prairie-inspired meadow, a butterfly house and a children’s garden. With interactive statues and countless water features, there is excitement around every corner. Although our mission and goals are very different from Botanica’s, we can still draw inspiration and fresh ideas from their exhibits. They have many vibrant annual plantings featuring coleus, begonias, cannas, and more. These would be unsustainable for our garden, given our smaller staff and water-conscious focus, but the color combinations and design principles could be implemented within our ethos of ecological native plantings.

*Arb staff enjoying the children’s garden at Botanica.*

Botanica does a fabulous job of seamlessly mixing classical garden designs and exotic, tropical plants with prairie favorites. While it is no doubt labor intensive to maintain, the effect is undeniably beautiful.

*Their boardwalk and pond includes views of water lilies, lotus flowers, pickerel weed, and many other stunning aquatic plants.*

What a WAMmy of a Retreat!

The Wichita Art Museum is full of priceless paintings and sculptures inside, but also has an 8-acre ‘art garden’ outside. The plantings feature prairie natives like coneflower, switchgrass, side-oats grama, alliums, and rattlesnake master. These familiar plants are growing in modern designs, grouped in masses to create large swathes of color and form. As a backdrop for sculptures and surrounded by interesting walkways, the prairie species look wild and yet orderly. They also provide great pollinator habitat in an otherwise urban, nectar-less area. Prairie plants require less water than traditional landscaping, making these gardens green in more than one way.

Mass plantings featuring fountain grass and catmint make a dramatic effect at the WAM. As we have learned here at the Arb, mass plantings are also easier to weed and maintain, especially for volunteers and staff who may be less familiar with the plant material.

The Wichita Art Museum has set their massive outdoor sculptures within several prairie-themed garden spaces. Brad is taking this photo while Scott and I chat about grass varieties and Janelle, the truly wise one among us, seeks shade to prevent a sunburn!

*WAM infuses every space with a modern, clean-cut feel. The stepping stones cut an orderly path through a dense planting of grasses.*

What a joy it was to take a day away from the Arboretum office, the greenhouse, and the ever-present crabgrass to explore other gardens and refresh our mindset. I returned to the Arboretum with renewed appreciation for what makes our garden unique and what our mission charges us to do, but with new inspiration for how we can do it better. If you are an Arboretum member, be sure to take advantage of that reciprocal membership. Visit these Wichita institutions and support them if you can.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Posted on June 2, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

Many of our readers and webinar participants have asked for an update on my native front yard project, and I am happy to oblige! As with every native garden, it had it’s ‘ugly duckling’ phase wherein it was more mulch than garden. This is normal, and patience is key to getting past this phase. Given the right conditions and enough time to mature, native plants will thrive and thrill you.

An Earth-Friendly Garden

Would you believe that not all gardens are ‘green’? I wanted to avoid the use of too many exotics, which take a lot of extra irrigation and often do not provide food for wildlife and insects. My goal two years ago was to decrease the amount of lawn in my landscape and increase quality habitat in my area. Since then I have been pleased to host buckeye, skipper, and monarch caterpillars. I have seen many species of birds swooping over my garden to eat the flies and moths that hang around. With very low water needs, this landscape helps keep my household water consumption low.

*Grey Santolina and purple skullcap anchor the front of my low-growing native landscape.*
Limestone edging along the curb stops my mulch from sliding away in heavy rains. I also found a few interesting boulders to serve as substrate for hen and chicks. They make a nice focal point, and add structure.

The Best Laid Plants

While we talk a lot about careful planning and design as keys to success with a native garden, a dash of spontaneity keeps the garden fun and fresh. After initial planting, I continued to add plants and deviate from my written plan. That’s okay! Adding lambs ear from my grandmother’s house, and strawberry mint from my parent’s greenhouse made the garden more personal and functional. I continue to fill in gaps here and there as I see them appear. I have learned an important lesson from all of this: if a certain plant doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean you failed or that you aren’t a good gardener. It might just mean it wasn’t in the right spot! Fill that space with something else you like and try again.

*White flowers of thyme spill onto my sidewalk, contrasted with the silvers of lambs ear*
*and the chartreuse leaves of bluebeard and sumac.*

Plant Selection

I mixed natives and non-natives to create a landscape that speaks to me; a space that is visually pleasing and ecologically friendly. Here are some of my favorites that are all growing well together:

lamb’s ear (Stachys bizantina)
fame flower (Talinum calycinum)
bluebeard (Caryopteris sp.)
skullcap (Scuttelaria resinosa ‘Smokey Hills’)
ornamental onion (Allium spp. )
Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuisimma)
prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis)
grey lavender cotton (Santolina chamaecyparissus)
sand cherry (Prunus besseyii ‘Pawnee Buttes’)
perky sue (Hymenoxys scaposa)
horsetail milkweed (Asclepias verticillata)
dwarf false indigo (Baptisia australis var. minor)
thyme, oregano, and lavender

*Lots of growth in 2.5 years! Be patient with your garden, and it will repay you in beauty.*

Stay tuned for future updates as this planting matures and continues to change. We have had such great enthusiasm around our Native Front Yard classes, making me hopeful that many of you are on the journey to more sustainable front yards as well!

How to Plant Your Garden Kit

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

There is no “one way” to landscape with native plants. One person’s dream landscape design might be someone else’s nightmare. Native gardens can be wild and wistful, or organized and formal. As long as the plant species being used are beneficial to wildlife and water conscious, you are on the right track! But it can be overwhelming when you have lots of great plants to choose from, but no guidance on how or where to install them in an aesthetically pleasing way. Planting can be daunting for beginners.

Our garden kits are so popular at FloraKansas because they take the guess work out of plant selection. Looking to fill in your shade garden? Our shade garden kit has a mix of spreaders and specimens to keep your interest through the season. Hoping to host caterpillars? The host plant medley we put together is a buffet for monarchs, fritillaries, swallowtails, and more. But after buying the kit, the real work begins!

Mountain mint is a plant included in our Monarch Special kit. A magnet for pollinators, it has a long bloom period and should be placed toward the middle or back of your garden area because of its height.

This is a very simple example schematic you could draft for yourself, depending on your circumstances. Use X’s to show each plant’s future placement and be sure to include existing structures like fences, driveways, sidewalks, or trees.

Keep It Simple

Our basic guidance is simple: cluster plants and design by height. This means keeping some color blocks together. For example, if the species are small like Viola pedata in our host plant kit, consider placing them in close proximity. When they bloom, it will make a much bigger impact and will draw more attention than just one plant here and there. Also keep an eye on height, planting so that one species doesn’t overshadow others. Place tall species at the back or middle of your viewing area, and shorter species toward the front or around the border. These two guidelines alone will help make your garden kit look planned and intentional, and can also help you stay organized when it comes time to weed. Use this simple design as an example, and make your own adjustments based on the kit you purchased.

Plants out in their natural prairie settings have no organization or man-made pattern, which is beautiful and awe inspiring at large scale. In our small home gardens however, careful design and clustering of color is a more manageable and visually pleasing approach. Photo by Brad Guhr.

Let the Plants Be Your Guide

If you purchased a garden kit with taller grasses like switch grass, those can serve as a backdrop for the color of flowers in front. If your kit included little bluestem, consider mixing those into a mid-height section as added structure for Liatris or milkweeds. As for how close to plant, we usually suggest no more than one plant per 2.5 to 3 square feet to accommodate the vigorous growth that is sure to come.

So grab some scratch paper and make a few sketches before you start digging holes. Or don’t! As I said before, there is no right way. You can plan down to the very last inch or throw them in willy-nilly. As long as you are having fun and planting native, you can’t go wrong.

From Lawn To Lush

Posted on April 7, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

Lawn alternatives are more than just a passing craze. They are a great way to reduce your carbon-footprint and increase pollinator habitat. I am excited to present a class this week on this very topic, and thought it might be nice to preview it here on the blog.

I replaced a large section of lawn at my own home, and instead planted with bluebeard, perky sue, sedum, prairie drop seed, Mexican feather grass, horsetail milkweed, and lavender. The violets came up on their own, and in hordes! But I leave them there because they are host plants for fritillary butterflies.

Cost over the ‘Lawn’ Haul

Traditional lawns of cool season grasses such as fescue and Kentucky blue grass have a wonderful place in my heart. They are great for entertaining, playing family games of badminton or throwing a Frisbee for the dog. But all that green space adds up: Kansas alone has 157,000 acres of turf and lawn, according to data from 2006 released by the KSDA. In that year, it cost Kansans an average of $1,541 per acre to maintain the turf grass in our state. So we end up with lots of grass, lots of money spent, but little to show in terms of habitat, soil health, or carbon sequestration.

Volunteers helped us plant our Sundial bed near the Visitor Center. The planting is dense and diverse, but is balanced well by the solid green of the fescue lawns around it and the tidy limestone edging.

Lawn Alternatives Bring Balance

Rather than villainizing turf grass and framing it as the epitome of all native landscaping evils, a symbol of a Eurocentric society ,obsessed with outward displays of status that date back to palaces and aristocratic practices of a bygone era….I choose to focus on balance. We must balance our love of flat, green, monoculture lawns with the urgent need for diverse native plantings. By converting some areas of your lawn to forbs, shrubs, native grasses and groundcovers, you gain interest and beauty and ecological benefits.

This home in Oklahoma has skipped the traditional grass lawn by planting shrubs and perennials around pathways/hardscape. The sidewalks keep it looking organized and also make for easy access to the beds. By Lebuert [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons

If you want to learn more about planting lawn alternatives, what species to choose and maintenance tips, be sure to sign up for our Native Plant School Series and catch my class tomorrow night!

New Native Plants: Part II

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Katie Schmidt

This is the second post in a two part series exploring new plants available at the spring fundraiser. After 22 years of Florakansas, we are still finding new garden-worthy natives to offer our community, and the commercial horticulture industry is always introducing new plant varieties to try.

Allium ‘Lavender Bubbles’

Ornamental onion is a landscaping favorite because of its tidy habit and pollinator-friendly blooms. We will have the native species A. cernuum and A. stellatum available, but when you need a bit more purple punch ‘Lavender Bubbles’ is the way to go. This variety blooms later in the summer than the well-loved ‘Millennium’, and has darker blooms.

Ephedra regliana

*Ephedra regalia, known as joint fir, is a diminutive ancient plant that adds some evergreen whimsy to a rock garden or border planting. Photo by I, James Roberts, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.*

Tolerant of alkaline soils and extreme drought, this plant can be found growing wild from Kyrgyzstan to China. A relative of ancient conifers, its showy red fruits develop in late summer. It absolutely demands good drainage, poor soil, and full sun. It would fit right in with a cactus garden or desert aesthetic.

Eupatorium ‘Prairie Jewel’

Eupatorium altissimum is a native Kansas plant that does not get the credit it deserves. It is seen as a tall, gangly plant with small, unimpressive white blooms. I have begun to appreciate it more and more as a drought tolerant back drop plant; something to grow at the back of the garden to add height and greenery. I call the flowers ‘baby’s breath of the prairie’ because they are so useful in bouquets. The ‘Prairie Jewel’ variety has striking leaf coloration that keeps it interesting, even when not in bloom.

Calamintha nepeta var. nepeta

Calmintha nepeta var. nepeta blends into many garden styles and makes a lovely addition to the perennial garden. Photo by I, KENPEI, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons

This is a plant I am very excited to try out in my own garden. Its white blooms and puffy habit make for great filler in weed-prone spaces that would benefit from dense cover and competition. Native to Europe, this mint family member carries its well-known pros and cons: it can be aggressive if left to spread unchecked, but it is beloved by pollinators.

Remember, members get first pick of the plants through pre-order services and our special Members-only Day on April 22. If you see some new plants here you just can’t live without, consider joining our growing membership of nature lovers! These plants and many more will be available to non-members April 23-26.