I have always been interested in local flora and fauna. Since it appears we may be in SW Kansas for a long, long while, I have decided to do something I've always wanted to do...start a flowerbed that is only native wildflowers and grasses. I have always loved wildflowers, a love given to me by my mother, and of course my native state, Texas, famous for its wildflowers. The names alone are intriguing...toadbane, fleabane, eyebane, lungwort, fumewort, spiderwort, Prairie Mallow, Cowboy's Delight, Scarlet Globe Mallow, henbit, Indian Blanket Flower, Indian Paintbrush, Bird's foot trefoil, a yellow flower named "Black Medic", Cursed Crowfoot, Charlock, Goat's Beard, roundleaf monkeyflower, yellow rocket, Prince's plume, the fun-to-say Filaree, Kiss-Me-Quick, locoweed, bear grass, the wicked-sounding resinous skullcap, toadflax, frog fruit...I could go on and on.
With the naming, I imagine that as our pioneer ancestors got further and further out onto the plains, longings for things familiar took over their imaginations, as did longings for sights other than vast expanses of grass, grass, grass, and when it came time to describe a flower out here, where at first glance everything appears barren, those imaginations resulted in the colorful names given to our wildflowering friends.
Besides the awesome names of the wildflowers, as a child I have always been amazed and fascinated by God's gifts to us, especially out on the prairies. Now, having spent time in the grown-up's world, I have spent years purchasing, then babying, my bedding plants. So, when I walk in nature, I appreciate even more the fact that the flowers I see are there by God's design, and grow and are beautiful without any assistance or hard work from yours truly. I have often wondered if I can create landscaping using native plants, grown at the right places, with the right neighbors, to create something at least as beautiful, or even more so, than the pretty but resource (money and natural) consuming bedding plants we have all been brainwashed into using year after year.
Think how awesome it would be to have a fairly care-free landscape around your home. In this area, it would need to be drought and sun and high-temperature tolerant, stand up to the furious winds, and be able to come back after a long, hard winter. We have a variety of wildflowers in this area that should be able to provide a constant bloom, beginning as early as March and lasting up until the first hard freeze. If planted correctly, I theorize that a gardener could utilize the beauty God provides each area of our world to have such a care-free, resource-saving garden.
Improve the soil? Why? These plants love the sandy, crappy, rocky soil we have here!
Water every day, especially during the dry season? Why? The plants that bloom during the dry season LIKE it dry and hot!
Replant the beds next spring? Why? God already planted them for you last year, either by the plant itself, by the wind, or by the birds and insects he made to live in this region!
And speaking of birds...feed the birds? Why? God has provided these plants for the birds that reside here. These plants feed his creatures.
It almost becomes laughable to think about gardening any other way. Perhaps all we have to do is look around us, be observant, and use what God provides for us.
Sounds so simple, and perhaps a bit naive. If it were so simple, everyone would be doing it, right? But by doing it this way, it doesn't make any money for the greenhouses, big box stores, and all the businesses that benefit from the bedding plant business. Not that I don't love my bedding plants...begonias, impatiens, geraniums, lillies, verbena....because I do. But there has to be an easier way...no one plants the fields of wildflowers, and they are breathtaking. Why do my little patches of God's earth have to be any different, especially when right across the road lies such a field...
Thus begins my experiment.
Right now I don't have a dedicated bed, but since I am already to the middle of May, and many of the first wildflowers have bloomed and are gone, I wanted to get started before the wildflower season here got in to full swing. I hope I don't regret not having made a bed further away from the lawn-area (it's no longer a lawn, as the weeds moved into it the two-plus years no one lived here) and my flowerbeds...but for now, I am using the largest bed I have made thus far.
I know this is a many-year project, and most of the research on this stuff has already been done. But, my goal is to come up with a rotation of flowering plants that will have a bed in continual color and interest from the earliest spring days to the last of the fall. A bed that will provide color, then the next round of flowers come up and hide the scraggly-looking ones that are finished and are busy reseeding themselves for next season, so there is the smallest lag time to no lag-time between flowers to seed, before new color/plants pop up.
That has always been the deterrent for my starting a wildflower bed...the scraggly-looking time period the flowers take to reseed themselves after their magnificent display. For example, in Texas, you have the "no-mow" areas where they have seeded the Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes. These areas are unbelievably gorgeous when in bloom, but the two weeks or so after they go to seed are almost equally as ugly. If I can get a proper rotation or planting of wildflowers to cover that reseeding process, that would bloom into the fall, then I will consider myself a great success! If not, I will have fun trying, and will love learning about all of the flowers in the newest area I call home.
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