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The Deep Middle


Gardening & writing in the prairie echo

Front Prairie Beds vs. Suburbia

6/5/2017

2 Comments

 
I often just show images of the backyard gardens because, well, they are in the back where I can be a cloistered introvert. And I'm also enamored with the lawn to meadow business going on. But the front beds deserve an update because they are another big suburban paradigm shift. You can tell just how big by noticing how many neighbors were watering this morning when I was checking on things. (All three of my nearest neighbors were watering and one goes twice a day.)

Plants are filling in. Last year I added about 50 Carex brevior plugs to beef things up and to provide more spring green when neighborhood lawns are also greening up. Black-eyed susans are a bit thuggy so I have to thin their seedlings, and so far the grasses are simply filling in vs. taking over. But that may change. Little bluestem and especially sideoats grama are on the move, but also doing well fighting weeds (very well this spring!).

In the images below you'll see several forbs, including: purple prairie clover, nodding onion, stiff goldenrod, aromatic aster, purple coneflower, pale purple coneflower, meadow blazingstar. and hidden in there somewhere a lead plant, dwarf baptisia, butterflyweed, and purple poppy mallow. I added blue hyssop this spring to a very bare, large-ish area where it can reseed itself in a nice grouping.

Other plants not making an appearance below are rattlesnake master and smooth aster. There is a 6' wide lawn pathway that divides the two beds, which are in total about 450 square feet. Nothing is taller than 2' within several feet of the sidewalk or driveway, and there is always something in bloom starting about mid May into late October.
2 Comments
Martha Ferguson link
6/6/2017 11:13:48 am

And what do you hear from your neighbors? Is there a HOA? If so, have you heard from them?

Reply
Benjamin
6/6/2017 11:27:39 am

Martha -- I've heard nothing. This garden started because we got a weed complaint for mowing too high and having dandelion seed heads (the latter which EVERYONE has). But, we also live on a street of introverts. There is a HOA, but it is very mercurial and very loose. I wrote a recent Houzz.com article on appealing to and working with more strict HOAs, and how to design a wilder butterfly garden to win them over. But every HOA is different, and this is a new design paradigm -- even though 99% of nature looks like this.

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    Benjamin Vogt's thoughts on prairie gardening in Nebraska. With a healthy dose of landscape ethics, ecophilosophy, climate change,  and social justice.

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prairie inspired  design

Lincoln & Omaha, Nebraska

Monarch Gardens is a prairie-inspired design firm. We specialize in lawn to meadow conversions as well as urban shade gardens.

Employing 95% native plants, our designs are climate resilient, adaptable, and provide numerous ecological benefits while artistically reflecting wilder landscapes.
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