It's Always A Good Time to Plant

Short's aster - Symphyotrichum shortii

Green eyes - Berlandiera subacaulis

Softhair coneflower - Rudbeckia mollis
We've had more than 4 inches of rain over the past few days after a month of virtually none. Today, with the soil moist once more, made it a good day to plant. I've been growing a number of plants in the Asteraceae in my hobby nursery, Hawthorn Hill, with this purpose in mind. Asters are the best  overall plants doe pollinators and I've never been satisfied with the few choices that have been ofered by the commercial native plant nurseries. My hobby, coupled with my new blank slate of a landscape is permitting me to experiment with a number of species that are not routinely offered by others - some that have never been as far as I know. If these are successful, they will add to the species that I can offer others in the future and while they grow they offer me firsthand experience in what they might require in a landscape.
Plants in landscapes are not the same as they are "in the wild".  Biotic forces that might limit their distribution in nature can be compensated in a landscape. Seed germination that might require cold stratification, for example, can be performed in a refrigerator. I'm adding a few species, like the green eyes (Berlandiera subacaulis), that occur just down the street from me as well as asters like Short's aster (Symphyotrichum shortii) that barely get here from states to our immediate north. Short's aster has only been recorded in Jackson and Liberty Counties. I am excited to be growing a few here as it's a beautiful species that seems to be largely unknown here in Florida. It may not do well in my landscape and that experiment is worth the effort I've put in so far.
I've run out of room in my front pollinator garden so this expansion to the south of my deciduous woodland is where these new plants need to go. I've got a couple more growing on the back burner, so to speak, and then I'll be out of room here as well.  My planting goal is to have these spread and eventually fill in this front apron of open space. All of this may take a year or more, but there's no fun in having nothing left to plant or poke around with.  As I continue to plant here, I'm also doing so in my nursery. Life doesn't stop because of social distancing...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ethics of Collecting Seed

Image
I've been writing lately about seeds and using them to create what is often called a pollinator meadow. A great many of the plants in my new landscape were grown from seed. Frankly, I have always loved sowing seeds and watching them sprout. I started in early childhood and I've been doing it since. It's rewarding and the anticipation of waiting for seeds to sprout is difficult to match unless you play the lottery. I rarely purchase seeds. I collect them. When I can, I purchase a few plants of a species I wish to add to my landscape and I then collect their seed after they bloom. If a plant doesn't prosper sufficiently to set seed for me, it is not a plant I wish to continue to grow. Over the years, I've tried a great many plants that I've failed to adequately provide for. Today in my landscape, I'm trying a few that I've never tried before. The exceptions come from plants that are not available in the trade. To grow these from seed, I need to collect
Read more

Wildflower Meadows - The Importance of Grasses

Image
A Natural Wildflower "Meadow" - Apalachicola National Forest I grew up in the prairie Midwest and was fortunate to have been caught up in the prairie restoration movement that blazed brightly in the last few decades of this past century. Very little of our original prairie ecosystems remain as the rich prairie soils were quickly converted to agricultural uses as European settlers swarmed their way over the continent.  These ecosystems are extremely diverse, regardless of where they occur. From the tall-grass prairies of the Midwest to the rockland prairies of the Mid-South and the true dry prairie systems here in Florida where I now reside, there are several universal characteristics - they are some of the most species diverse systems in the world and they are dominated by grasses. Grasses, in all their many shapes and forms, are what form the foundation of any "meadow." That must also be true for all the "wildflower meadows" I see extolled on s
Read more

A Pollinator Garden is More than Wildflowers

Image
A natural grass-dominated meadow in the shade Splitbeard bluestem - Andropogon ternarius Lopsided Indiangrass - Sorghastrum secundum Sites on social media that are promoting pollinator gardens are rife with posts about wildflowers. Folks seeking to make their landscapes pollinator friendly seem to be almost-universally focused on wildflowers. What these well-meaning people seem to not understand is the importance of native grasses. Meadows, prairies, and other wildflower-dominated systems are mostly grass. Grasses form the backbone of every one of these plant communities. It isn't the wildflowers. They simply provide most of the color - but a living landscape is not about color, it's about creating habitat, and this habitat requires us to incorporate native grasses. It is true that the vast majority of grasses, and their graminoid relatives, are wind pollinated. They do not provide nectar and pollen for the most part, but despite that they are significant. More s
Read more