Botanical Bits — June 2004:
June 03, 2004
Prairie Flower Garden Adapts to Home Landscape
Why would anyone want to landscape using prairie plants? Prairies, after all, once stretched from horizon to horizon – vast open spaces that hardly resemble your corner lot in the city.
However, many gardeners and landscape professionals are discovering that prairie wildflowers and grasses can be used, resulting in a more natural look than the conventional, well-manicured lawn-box hedge look that has turned America's neighborhoods into boring clones of one another.
Learn about the many prairie plants that fit into a more modest lot size, that won't overtake your garden and work well even when used in formal beds. The prairie is not only colorful in the fall; in fact, some of the most beautiful prairie wildflowers bloom in spring and summer.
We live where prairie once existed so it makes sense that we garden using prairie wildflowers. After all, these plants existed for centuries without the benefit of landscape crews and garden centers. A prairie landscape is also friendlier on the environment, requiring none of the water that our thirsty lawns need, and the use of chemicals to control pests is virtually eliminated.
There are many ways to incorporate prairie plants into your existing perennial border, or perhaps you want to create your own "postage stamp" prairie garden. You can use the following planting plan to help you achieve the right texture and density of wildflowers and grasses. First, divide your garden space into a grid of one square yard sections and plant one dominant grass per square yard. There are 1-4 species of dominant grasses for each kind of prairie. It is best to plant them in a random pattern so that when that species is most eye-catching, nothing will look lined up and artificial. For every dominant grass, plant one subsidiary grass. For every 10 dominant grasses, plant a shrubby prairie flower. Now, choose at least four different species of cool season forbs and at least four species of warm season forbs for each dominant grass and place them in drifts. Finally, broadcast seeds of pioneer forbs to help cut down on weeds. As soon as the rhizomatous pants start to spread and everything seeds out, this grid should disappear altogether.
Here are some basic maintenance guidelines for prairie gardens:
– It is best to fight only those weeds that can cause tremendous trouble later. It is helpful to know what the prairie plants look like when they first emerge in spring, but it is far easier to memorize the life cycle of a dozen invasive weeds.
– Let annual weeds act as a cover crop and worry only about keeping seed from maturing by mowing. Mow whenever weeds get over 10 inches tall using a flail mower or a weed whip. If weeds are minimal, hand-weed only.
– The best way to handle insects is to do nothing at all and let nature take its course. One percent of garden insects are pests.
– Do not water your garden after it is established. Otherwise, the plants that survive will be those that require extra water, while those that can live on rainfall may rot because they get too wet. Grasses are best not fertilized and not placed where the sprinkler system will hit them. Don't kill prairie plants with kindness; remember most of these plants evolved on poor soils and fluctuating moisture levels.
Here's a list of plants from which to choose for your prairie garden:
– Dominant tall grasses: Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)
– Dominant short grasses: little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis)
– Subsidiary grasses: sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), Canada wildrye (Elymus canadensis), prairie Junegrass (Koeleria pyramidata), prairie sedge (Carex bicknellii)
– Shrubby wildflowers: leadplant (Amorpha canescens), New Jersey tea (Ceonothos Americana)
– Tall cool season wildflowers: rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), white wild indigo (Baptisia lactea), Ohio spiderwort (Tradescantia ohioensis), tube penstemon (Penstemon tubaeflorus), mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum)
– Tall warm season wildflowers: wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), pitcher's sage (Salvia azurea), obedience plant (Physostegia virginiana), pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida), prairie coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), compass plant (Silphium laciniatum), Joe Pye plant (Eupatorium purpureum), thickspike gayfeather (Liatris pycnostachya), showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa), sky blue aster (Aster azurea)
– Short cool season wildflowers: purple poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata), Missouri primrose (Oenothera macrocarpa), candle anemone (Anemone cylindrica), prairie smoke (Geum triflorum)
– Short warm season wildflowers: wild petunia (Ruellia humilis), prairie onion (Allium stellatum), purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea), butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), black sampson (Echinacea angustifolia), plains coreopsis (Coreopsis palmata), dotted gayfeather (Liatris punctata), Missouri black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia missouriensis), aromatic aster (Aster oblongifolius)
– Pioneer forbs: daisy fleabane (Erigeron strigosus), black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta),
upright prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera), shell-leaf penstemon (Penstemon grandiflorus), prairie ragwort (Senecio plattensis).
6/3/04-KL/DM Bob Henrickson
Nebraska Statewide Arboretum Assistant Director for Horticulture Programs (402) 472-2971
 
Karma Larsen
Nebraska Forest Service Communications Associate (402) 472-2971
Dan Moser IANR News Service (402) 472-3007
Department:
Nebraska Statewide Arboretum
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