Landscape Scale Prairie Gardening – Thinking Bigger

Posted on March 21, 2018 by Brad Guhr

If you follow our blog, you are probably thinking about creating a prairie garden, are in the process of creating one, or have already done so. One of the reasons you might be participating in this enjoyable ritual is because you want to increase wildlife habitat for insects, birds, small mammals, amphibians, and reptiles in your home landscape. Indeed, if you increase native plant diversity in your landscape, you will attract more wildlife.

I want you to consider going a step further and thinking about how your landscape, which is increasing in biological diversity through your prairie gardening habits, relates to the greater landscape of your neighborhood. The study of landscape ecology tells us that ecological function generally improves as you increase the size and diversity of a particular ecosystem. For example, three landowners in succession creating prairie gardens will create more storm-water holding capacity and wildlife attraction than only one of those landowners doing so. And if those three adjacent landowners happen to be situated next to a stream, a park, a hay meadow on the edge of town, etc., the ecological function of those combined green spaces will increase.

In her 1993 book Noah’s Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Back Yards, Sara Stein tells inspiring stories about how she converted from traditional chemical and water-intensive suburban landscaping to a style that included more native plants, more habitat for wildlife and more connectivity with other green spaces. She promotes contiguous greenway corridors that allow for greater wildlife diversity and freer migration through urban areas. This was a very influential book that helped push me toward the pursuit of an advanced degree in ecological restoration.

I recently learned about an intriguing resource created through a collaboration between two entities I greatly admire – The Nature Conservancy and The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Habitat Network brings people together to explore the effects of new conservation practices in urban, suburban, and rural landscapes. The Habitat Network website is a free citizen science resource that invites people to map their outdoor space, share it with others, and learn more about supporting wildlife and improving backyard habitat in cities and towns across the country. It takes the concepts of powerful GIS mapping software and puts them into a user-friendly, public platform that anybody can use. This looks like a great tool that I look forward to exploring and reporting on in future blog posts.

A captured image that helps describe the Habitat Network mapping process.

So, while I start mapping habitats and measuring the ecological value of Dyck Arboretum of the Plains and my home landscape, consider picking up a copy of Noah’s Garden and spend some time with Habitat Network yourself. Let’s think bigger, explore how we can document and expand our beneficial ecological footprint through landscape scale prairie gardening, and consider ways to convince others to follow our lead.

This is a conversation to be continued…

Make Your Garden Welcoming to Winter Birds

Posted on December 6, 2017 by Scott Vogt

Something that amazes me every year is how birds survive the winter. Somehow they are able to find the food, water and shelter they need each day. Just the other day, I watched a pair of cardinals foraging in the buffalograss and eating seeds from the Maximilian Sunflower outside my window. They find a way to survive, but it can’t be easy. I believe we can do a few things in our yards to make their lives a little easier. Here is a list that will help them survive the cold weather and give you more up-close encounters with birds.

Photo by Dave Osborne.

Leave prairie plants up through the winter

Winter is a desperate time for birds. They spend a tremendous amount of energy each day searching for food. Their winter food comes from a variety of sources, but one of the first places they search is in and around meadows and perennial borders. By leaving these areas undisturbed through the winter, birds can find bugs, seeds that are highly nutritious in the seed heads, and tufts of grass near the ground.

Create a wildlife border

The more diverse your plantings, the more diverse the types of birds your landscape will attract. Think about different layers of plants, including trees and shrubs, that produce fruit and nuts that birds need. Incorporate a few evergreens along with deciduous trees and shrubs, because the winter foliage provides extra protection from the elements and predators. These layers mimic the natural areas birds flock to during the winter.

Create a compost pile

All those leaves that are blowing all around your yard make wonderful compost. They also make a nice place for bugs to hide. I have seen birds completely destroy a compost pile searching for insects and seeds. Those leaves will also become next year’s soil amendment for your garden.

Make a brush pile

Our brush pile at the Arboretum is huge, but it is always filled with birds. It provides shelter from winter storms and protection from predators. Even a small pile with logs, sticks and branches will provide the safety and security many birds need.

Provide Food for Birds in the Winter

The key to feeding birds in winter is to give them options. A diverse selection of seed, suet, and peanuts will entice many different types of birds. Locate feeders in areas out of the wind but within viewing distance. Hang some from tree branches and others on the ground.

Provide Water for Birds

Birds need ready access to water in the winter. Bird baths, a puddle, or a stream are great options as long as they are not frozen. Heating these water sources will allow birds to find the water they need for survival especially during freezing weather.

Make plans to help

If you don’t have these key features in your garden already, create a design that favors birds and other wildlife. Include grasses and perennials that produce seeds birds prefer. Establish shrubs with persistent seeds and fruit that birds can utilize in the winter.

Here are a couple of interesting websites that may help you create your plan:

Common Feeder Birds

Kansas Birds Checklist

How birds survive the winter in simply amazing. Helping to welcome the boreal birds to your backyard can be quite enjoyable for you and for them. By providing the habitat and food they need, your landscape can become a bird sanctuary and a haven that gives them food, water, and shelter to endure the winter.

Six Rewards of Native Plants

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Scott Vogt

Native plants reward people and wildlife in many different ways. They improve the environment, create a sense of place, restore a balance between plants and pollinators and you get to enjoy their natural beauty. Below is a quick list of six good things native plants do and provide.

They are a good value for your money.

Having just finished the fall plant sale, we hear over and over the value of native plants. If matched to the site, they are resilient, quick-growing and long-lived. They persist and thrive, which saves money since you seldom need to purchase replacements. These plants are adapted to our climate extremes. Their deep roots, habits and forms quickly fill up your garden space, adding interest throughout the seasons.

Pollinators will love your plants and you.

With all the talk about pollinator declines including monarchs, don’t you want to help in any way possible? The most obvious way that you can help is by planting the native wildflowers they need for survival. Whether milkweeds for monarchs or plants that provide food and shelter for these imperiled native pollinators, your yard can become an oasis. Why not create a habitat where up close encounters with many different butterflies, bees, insects, and even birds, can be admired?

They are a versatile and diverse group of plants.

One of the amazing attributes of the prairie is its diversity. There are literally thousands of plants thriving in every possible landscape situation. Wet, dry, sun, shade, clay, sand and so on – there are a host of plants that will grow in your yard just as they do in the prairie. That diversity allows you to match native plants to your own part of the world and successfully develop a landscape plan.

Native plants reduce maintenance.

Notice I didn’t say native plants require no maintenance? Even though native plants are drought tolerant and tough, they still require some maintenance each year in a landscape scenario. Again, think about a prairie. Native plants’ only requirements are to be cleaned off each spring before the next season’s growth. They survive pests and disease, require little or no fertilizing and demand extra water only during the severest drought. By spending less time maintaining your garden, it releases you from the obligation of burdensome yard work. Less time working and more time enjoying your landscape is always a good thing.

Native plants help with soil and water conservation.

The root systems of native plants are vital to soil and water conservation. Grasses such as big bluestem and switchgrass have fibrous deep reaching roots that hold soil tightly, keeping it from eroding into waterways. A dense, thick prairie of grasses and wildflowers will slow the movement of water, allowing more to infiltrate the soil too. Those deep roots also tap into moisture during dry periods. Drought resistant plants require little if any supplemental water which saves you money in the long run.

Enjoy the garden you created.

A prairie planting done right will offer you years of enjoyment. A habitat with attractive forms, textures and flowers that bloom at different times during the growing season will attract a host of pollinators and birds for you to watch. Those up close encounters will deepen your appreciation of these endangered species. Surrounding your home with native plants guarantees you’ll be rewarded time after time and year after year. It is a reward to you, but a gift to the natural world too.

Finding Common Ground with Native Landscaping

Posted on November 30, 2016 by Brad Guhr

In the gardening off season now, you have a chance to think about the big picture of what you want for your landscape. Consider a plan that resonates with the general public by finding common ground with native landscaping. I will offer some suggestions that help keep your native landscaping from looking like a “weed patch”.

Let’s start with some perspective. Landscaping in the United States has many different influences and varies greatly from formal to wild/ecological. You have a whole spectrum of styles to consider.

Formal Gardening

Many of us were taught to appreciate the formal landscapes and garden designs made famous in Europe and France centuries ago featuring rectilinear lines with meticulously-trimmed lawns and hedges. Much of our society today still prefers this landscaping style as is evident in city codes and homeowner association regulations that encourage and even mandate manicured vegetation. With this style, we value leaves over flowers, vegetation simplicity, order, control and tidiness. Intensive use of mowers, trimmers, water, fertilizer, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides, help efficiently maintain this style of landscaping that symbolizes human domination of nature.

Gardens of Château de Villandry, France. Photo by Peter Dutton.

Ecological Restoration

On the other end of the landscaping spectrum is ecological restoration. Plant communities native to a place are used as the blueprint to reconstruct a functioning ecosystem. Seeds of that plant community (i.e., prairie grasses and wildflowers in South Central Kansas) are planted and disturbance vectors (i.e., fire and grazing) that originally maintained that plant community are restored. While intensive preparation and planning go into reconstructing a prairie, this style of landscaping is eventually low maintenance, requires only implementing/simulating occasional disturbance, and mostly embodies working in sync with nature.

Reconstructed Prairie at Dyck Arboretum of the Plains.

Native landscaping advocates, promote many benefits of this latter landscaping style:

Colorful flowers and seed heads with varied shapes and textures
Diverse habitats with food and shelter that attract various forms of wildlife
Dynamic landscapes that provide year-round visual enjoyment
Long-term low input needs with regard to water, fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides
Adaptation to natural environmental conditions
A cultural connection to earlier inhabitants that used native vegetation for food, medicine, and ritual; building a “sense of place”

There are barriers, however, to landscaping this way in cities. Fires and grazing are not practical in urban areas. Annual mowing adequately simulates these activities, but dealing with that much biomass can still be cumbersome. Codes limiting vegetation height and social expectations driven by the formal garden mindset are hurdles for folks wanting to landscape with native plants. Native plantings are often seen as messy “weed patches”.

But you can still landscape with native plants in publicly palatable ways and enjoy many of the listed benefits. While my training and education are in ecological restoration and I used to be an advocate for restoring diverse prairies in urban areas, I realize that is not usually practical. I’ve moved towards the middle of the landscaping spectrum when it comes to recommendations on landscaping with native plants, to find common ground between formal and ecological styles.

With more than a decade of lessons learned from helping schools implement native plant gardens, I’d like to offer some of the following management practices to make native plant gardens more visually appealing to the general public.

Native Plant Garden Best Management Practices

Define Garden Goals – Wildlife habitat in general? Single species habitat (e.g., monarch)? Rain garden? High profile or in backyard? Prairie or woodland?
Start Small – I plan for about one plant per 2-3 square feet. Hand irrigation to establish plants in the first year is important as well as establishing a regular weeding routine takes time. Keep the workload manageable. You can always enlarge/add more gardens later.
Prepare the Site – Eradicate existing perennials with a couple of Glyphosate treatments in summer, especially important for getting rid of weed enemy #1, Bermuda grass.
Consider Height Proportions – Think about being able to see layers of plants. Island gardens are visually more appealing with shorter plants and there are many short to medium height native options to consider. Gardens against building walls do allow for taller vegetation in the back.
Be sure that plants are not too tall for the scale of small island plantings.
Add Hardscaping – Include features such as bird baths, feeders, houses, artwork, and benches for human enjoyment.
Get Edgy – Establish the boundary where weeding meets mowing. A flexible edge such as flat pieces of limestone is a favorite. A visible edge also conveys that this garden is purposeful.
Limestone edging helps define this garden.
Clumping of Species – When a garden has high visibility for the public, choose fewer species and plant them in clumps or waves to convey that this garden is intentional. Too many species planted will appear random and thrown together over time.
Suggestions for planting in waves or clumps.
Don’t Fertilize – Native plants will survive fine without fertilizer. Extra nutrients benefit weeds and only make native plants taller (and more wild looking).
Mulch Is Your Friend – One or two applications (2”-4” deep) of free wood chip mulch from the municipal pile or delivered by a tree trimmer keeps the native garden looking good and helps control weeds. A layer or two of newspaper under the mulch also minimizes weeds.
Signage Educates – Whether a wildlife certification sign or species identification labels, signage helps convey that this garden is intended to be there. Education leads to acceptance.
Weeding Is Mandatory –Weeding regularly and often minimizes the need for a long backbreaking weeding session that will make you hate your garden. It is therapeutic and good exercise. Plus, a high frequency of visits to your garden will add to your appreciation and enjoyment.
Weeding can be fun!

Now, resume your planning and consider going native. Do so in a visually pleasing way and maybe your neighbors will follow suit.

Photo Credits

How Do You Learn About Native Plants?

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Scott Vogt

This weekend, I did some reflecting on the past 19 years I have spent at the arboretum. I thought I knew so much when I was hired as the horticulturist. After all, I had just graduated from Kansas State University with a horticulture degree. There wasn’t anything I didn’t know. But after the first week, I was in over my head.

It was July in Kansas. Need I say more?

One of the first things I quickly realized was that I knew virtually nothing about native plants. I had learned about a few native trees and shrubs in my college classes, but I couldn’t identify more than five wildflowers. My learning curve was steep those first few years. I was going to sink or swim at this new job by how much I knew about native plants. So I set out to learn all I could about the plants that grow on the prairie.

Bison-Photo by Craig Freeman

7mS4mWofHolcomb_FinneyCoKS_CFreeman_01Jul1995

Finney County KS-Photo by Craig Freeman

The most formative experiences that I had were the many seed collecting field trips we made throughout the state. It was so enlightening to see the plants growing in their natural environment. Those memories guide how I design gardens today. I became familiar with the plants, but more importantly I learned where they like to grow and who they like to grow with. Just like us, plants need to be in communities that are vibrant, healthy and sustaining. Native plants rely on each other. High quality prairies and even gardens have communities of plants that live harmoniously together.

RusselSprings_LoganCoKS_CFreeman_19May1999

Logan County, KS-Photo by Craig Freeman

Chalk Formations-Photo by Craig Freeman

Collecting seeds forced me to learn the scientific names of the plants. Each seed had a specific set of conditions that it must be subjected to in order for germination to occur. This too was a fascinating process that required me to learn. It was extremely rewarding to take some seed from the wild and get it to germinate in the greenhouse and ultimately place a new plant for the seed we collected into the arboretum for others to enjoy.

CimarronNatlGrassland_CFreeman_26Jun1988

Cimarron National Grassland-Photo by Craig Freeman

RocktownNaturalArea_RusselCoKS_CFreeman_08Oct1988

Rocktown Natural Area-Russel County-Photo by Craig Freeman

I read catalogs and books about native plants. I grew, planted and killed several native plants in an attempt to continue that learning process. I moved plants that were not happy to other areas in the garden where they began to thrive. These exploratory trips – we called it “55 mph botany” – helped me hone my identification skills as we traveled many of the back roads of Kansas in search of unique native plants. Each of these experiences influence plant choices, mixtures and sequences in landscape plans. As native plants have become more mainstream, more information is available. Naturally, I am still learning.

Flint Hills-Photo by Craig Freeman

I say all this to encourage gardeners, specifically native plant enthusiasts, to learn everything you can about at least 25 plants that will grow well in your landscape. From those, there is nearly an infinite number of plant combinations. By matching plants to your sight, the guess-work has been taken out of the equation. This will increase your successes and diminish your failures. If the plants are happy, they will take care of themselves. And that will increase your enjoyment while greatly reducing your upkeep and maintenance.

Challenge: Start with learning about 10 native plants, eight wildflowers and two grasses. As you learn about these plants and incorporate them into your garden where they like to grow, I believe you will be rewarded in time with a landscape that works for you, not against you. You will have a community of plants that flourish together.

Tag Archives: prairie gardening