Monarch Gardens
  • Home
  • About
    • What We Believe
    • Benjamin Vogt
    • Our Dream
    • Press
  • Design
    • Designing
    • Portfolio
    • Reviews
  • Classes
  • Speaking
  • Books
    • Articles
    • Books
  • Garden Guides
  • Workshop
  • Blog
  • community
  • Shirts
  • News
  • Contact

The Deep Middle


Gardening & writing in the prairie echo

Lessons of a Backyard Meadow

7/5/2020

6 Comments

 
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.

Picture
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. 
Picture
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 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.
6 Comments
Dianne C.
7/7/2020 02:46:17 pm

Just shared this with a friend who has been trying the same thing. I'm not so vigorous in letting a patch grow up in the back where I hate to mow on a hillside. I understand your comment about ironweed. I love it, but it gets a bit pushy. This year I am letting fall asters come up where they may in my gardens, they will be spectacular. Happy summer!! If I'm gardening, I'm not griping about having to stay home.

Reply
Penny N.
7/9/2020 12:52:18 pm

I have gray dogwood in the little woodlot behind my house, mostly at the sunny south edge. I'm in Ohio in zone 6a. Do you know how it spreads? by seed or by roots?

Reply
Arthur Oslund link
8/15/2020 07:58:38 pm

Hi Benjamin,
Thank you for the great letter about your experiences with converting to native ground cover. I have a section of mostly red fescue and purple violet that needs work.I am starting tomorrow but taking a slightly different approach.
1. Scalp the ground with my weed wacker.
2. A onetime application of Roundup to kill the existing weeds and grass.
3. Lightly till the soil with a garden rake.
4. Plant native seed and nursery plants of a mix of mostly shade tolerant species such as milkweed, stinging nettle, Joe Pye Weed, etc. I need to research more on the selections.
5. Water and watch.
Art

Reply
Rock breaking Christchurch link
12/14/2020 04:33:17 am

Wonderful information about lessons of a backyard meadow, thanks a lot for sharing kind of content with us. Your blog gives the best and the most interesting information. I wonder if we can gather such practical information about it, a great post definitely to come across.Come across Smcnz.nz and hope you can visit this too to get more information.

Reply
Earthworks link
12/28/2020 04:27:35 am

I loved your blog and thanks for publishing these lessons of a backyard meadow!! I am really happy to come across this exceptionally well written content. Thanks for sharing and look for more in future!!I have seen similar information at one place, you can also see on Earthmovingandcivil.co.nz.

Reply
Lawn Preparation link
2/13/2021 05:39:26 am

An awesome blog on the lessons of the backyard meadow in detail. This article provides us true and insightful information regarding it. This article is very helpful. Great blog indeed, will visit again future to read more!!I am sure many people will come to read about it in future.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    About

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

    Picture
    Online Classes  |  200 Articles

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017


    Original Archives

    1,257 posts from

    July 2007 - May 2017


    Garden Timelapse


    Subscribe

    RSS Feed


    Picture
    In a time of climate change and mass extinction how & for whom we garden matters more than ever.

    "This book is about so much more than gardening."
Picture
M O N A R C H   G A R D E N S   LLC

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.
Sign up for our newsletter!
Join Now