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A WyoBraska
Native Grass
& Wildflower Lawn
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It’s time for a change. Enough
of this preemptive war, torture, spending out of
control, and callous disregard of the environment.
The time has come for peace, love, and flowers. I’m
speaking, of course, of the average homeowner’s lawn
care—the preemptive war on weeds and insects, the
torture of weekly mowing, the out-of-control
spending on water bills, and the callous disregard
of nature’s diversity that the traditional lawn
represents.
Yes we can do better, said Arden and Sharon Wohlers,
of Scottsbluff, and this spring they seeded about
half of their large residential lot with a mixture
of short prairie grasses and wildflowers.
Arden hired his golfing
partner, and long-time Wyobraska nurseryman and
landscaper, Jim Neuwirth of ABC Nursery in
Scottsbluff to seed the area. |
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The grass mixture in this planting is 50-50 buffalo
grass and blue grama. The prevailing wisdom is that
buffalo grass performs better in heavier soils and
blue grama performs better in lighter, sandier
soils. Most of the landscape soils in Wyobraska
tend to be a purely one or the other, so the blend
of buffalo grass and blue grama works well. Buffalo
grass tends to be a little shorter than blue grama,
so the blend of grass types in a planting usually
produces a pleasing variation in height—typical of a
natural shortgrass prairie. Rarely will either of
these two grass types get over 12 inches in height,
though.
The eye-catching aspect of the Wohlers native
grass planting, without a doubt, is the
wildflowers. Neuwirth used the Jirdon’s (now Westco)
dryland wildflower mix. |
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Previous Articles
It's
Finally Spring - March 13
Spring Garden Calendar-March 20
No
Garden Left Behind-March 27
Planting Trees for a Cooler Earth in a Warmer
WyoBraska-April 3
Viburnums - Shrubs for Wyobraska Springs-April 10
Want A Water Conserving Lawn? You might already have
one-
April 17
Creating Long
Term
Tree-lationships April 24
Bigger, Bolder, Brighter,
Better—and Back In The Landscape May 01 & 08
Hardy Shrub
Roses
May 15
Another Look
at Native Plants
May 22
No Child
Left Inside
May 29
June
is Tree Care Month June 05
Summer Blooming Shrubs
June 12
Roses Are
Red..June 19
The Plants They will be Talking About Next Year
June 26
Busy Summertime Gardens
July 03
Cutting Your Lawn Down to Size
July 10
July 17
Insect Paranoia
If It Will Grow In Wyoming...
July 24
Rain Gardens
July31
2007 Articles
2006 Articles |
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Arden sprayed the existing
vegetation on the lot with round-up several times
this spring, then Jim prepared the seedbed and
seeded the are around the first of June.
The Wohlers have provided the
post-planting care—mostly watering—by hand. They
have watered primarily in the evening—to reduce
evaporation loss that occurs when watering during
the heat of the day, and occasionally in the early
morning.
Arden reports that he has also pulled some weeds
over the past two months, but doesn’t seem at all
bothered by the amount of effort that has gone into
weeding. If you look carefully, you can see a few
of our common local weeds in and among the grasses
and wildflowers, but the average person is unlikely
to notice them, and I suspect that by next year the
grasses will have crowded them out. He plans to do
a little chemical weed control this fall and next
spring
Pictures
taken at Wohler's on August 6th |
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I recognized several of the
flowers in the mixture, and they tend to be flowers
that are either perennial, or annuals which reseed
successfully each year. Many Wyobraska homeowners
that have attempt wildflower plantings have reported
that the plantings tend to diminish in intensity
over a few years, and that the mixture of colors
quickly reverts to only one or two—most often white
and yellow. But I think that much of the reason for
this experience has been that the wildflower mixes
were not well-suited to Wyobraska’s arid climate.
My guess is that the mix of flowers in this planting
will retain much of its flower diversity and
intensity in future years.
Also noticeable when I was
there, was the extra butterfly and bee activity
around the site. Traditional lawns offer nothing in
the way of food or cover to these important members
of any healthy ecosystem. But a wildflowers and
seeding grasses are a wildlife buffet. And the
activity of birds, bee, butterflies, dragonflies,
and a small city of other critters is an added bonus
to the careful observer of these restored natural
landscapes.
The Wohlers native grass and
dryland wildflower lawn and others like them are
valuable learning opportunities for Wyobraskans.
One forgets that the ease with which we now manage
traditional lawns is mostly the result of an entire
industry of fertilizer and chemical suppliers,
irrigation system product suppliers and installers,
and lawn care companies that mow, fertilize, and
control weeds and insects. I wonder what
alternative lawns will look like when there is a
similar industry assisting homeowners with
establishing and maintaining native grass and
wildflower lawns. If they look like the Wohlers
lawn this summer, I suspect that alternative lawns
will be showing up more often around Wyobraska. |
