We moved to our home in 2007, and for a few years I mowed and fertilized and even watered diligently. Then I just got fed up with spending an hour every week in the heat as I watched an adjacent 1,500ft garden fill in and support wildlife. Until 2015 I neglected the back lawn, some 3,000ft or so, and as a result the tall fescue got a little patchy and weak. It burned bad every August and, in 2013-2014 some prairie grasses began moving in. Ok, I thought, the landscape of benign neglect was telling me something.
So in the fall of 2015 I scalped the back lawn hard, planted a few hundred plugs, and sowed some prairie grass and forb seed.
So in the fall of 2015 I scalped the back lawn hard, planted a few hundred plugs, and sowed some prairie grass and forb seed.
2020
In the spring of 2016 I mowed short to try and keep the fescue back and allow sunlight on to the soil surface more for seed germination. About June I stopped. I read somewhere that if you let a fescue lawn go to seed it weakens the grass; I'm not sure if that's true (let me know), but I do know that by the end of the first year I had little bluestem and sideoats grama in almost every square inch.
In 2017 biennial forbs really came on and totally smothered the lawn. The two workhorses were mexican hat (Ratibida columnifera) and black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta). These guys seemed to do a number on the fescue in the first half of the year, totally shading, outcompeting, and generally smothering -- of course, I did sow them fairly thickly. By the end of the season the warm season grasses had taken over the job, and in all but the shadiest areas where the warm season native grasses did not take as well, the fescue lawn all but vanished. But I still had a dearth of perennial flower younglings from what I could tell, so I kept planting a few dozen plugs here and there every spring and fall -- which I still do as I tweak, replace, augment, etc.
2017
In the annual mow that occurs every March, both the thatch layer and what the mower left behind is very thick, so I hand rake all 2,500ft every two years. I want to encourage all the flower seeds I know are out there from the past few years -- as well as the seed I kept throwing out -- and it paid off in two ways. First, in 2019 I had a massive abundance of various aster species and and an increase in slower growing forbs like Baptisia. More and more seedlings seemed to appear throughout the summer, and by fall I had a very showy aster display. However, that aster abundance primarily occurred right at the edge of a shade line from my neighbor's trees on the south side. Out in the full sun area, forbs that like it dry and sunny were growing fuller (while the warm season grasses were thick and lush.
This year is perhaps the thickest the space has ever been, and that's with a lack of June rain and tons of early heat. Forbs are starting to move in from that southerly shade line and are, surprisingly, affecting the density of little bluestem and sideoats grama around and under them. I want and need that grass layer -- that green mulch -- which is a superb weed barrier and soil moisture regulator, so I'm thinking it might be time for some sedge: Carex radiata or Carex blanda that can grow in the shade of taller forbs. Or, I need to do a June trim of many forbs.
I can say this for certain -- I have too many ironweed (Vernonia spp) seedlings. It really went to town this year germinating, and if I'm not careful I'll be left with an ironweed and indiangrass meadow.
I can say this for certain -- I have too many ironweed (Vernonia spp) seedlings. It really went to town this year germinating, and if I'm not careful I'll be left with an ironweed and indiangrass meadow.
I need to do a more formal survey of species density and diversity. While it's certainly not a prairie reconstruction, it is a garden that needs to mimic some of the attributes of a restoration. The primary plants I've added this year are groundcovers such as wine cups (Callirhoe involucrata) and wild geranium (Geranium maculatum).
I've also added some spreaders like Coreopsis palmata and Pycnanthemum virginanum to provide larger floral masses or drifts at low to mid level heights that match the stature of the shorter warm season grasses.
If I had to do this all over again I'd have killed the lawn in one fell swoop and employed a greater degree of patterns with which the garden could grow from. However, it has been fascinating to watch the plants convert lawn for me in slow motion, and to observe general behaviors in what amounts to a hodgepodge I'm backwards designing as I observe succession and competition. In the end, the ground is covered, the primary weed threat is manageable and woody (red cedar, siberian elm, grey dogwood), and there's always something moving in the plants: snake, rabbit, spider, dragonfly, bee, beetle, bird.
I've also added some spreaders like Coreopsis palmata and Pycnanthemum virginanum to provide larger floral masses or drifts at low to mid level heights that match the stature of the shorter warm season grasses.
If I had to do this all over again I'd have killed the lawn in one fell swoop and employed a greater degree of patterns with which the garden could grow from. However, it has been fascinating to watch the plants convert lawn for me in slow motion, and to observe general behaviors in what amounts to a hodgepodge I'm backwards designing as I observe succession and competition. In the end, the ground is covered, the primary weed threat is manageable and woody (red cedar, siberian elm, grey dogwood), and there's always something moving in the plants: snake, rabbit, spider, dragonfly, bee, beetle, bird.
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