Discovering the world around me.
Orchard grass, (Dactylis glomerata) is another species of grass found on Owl Acres. It can grow up to four feet tall. On Owl Acres it grows at the edges of fence rows and has to be trimmed around the house and other obstacles. It’s called cat grass because cats like to chew it, and it’s […]
Continue reading Grass, Part 2: Orchard Grass
Grass. How ordinary, unremarkable, and everywhere! Owl Acres has about four acres of grass. Now that the mower is fixed, it gets mowed every week or two. Bryan sets the mower high in an effort to avoid mowing the snakes that live deep in the grass. But the grass itself—what do we know about it? […]
Continue reading Grass Part 1: Smooth Brome Grass
Along the edges of our prairie garden, we noticed some tiny, pure white star-shaped flowers. They were only a few inches high, and stood out against the green of the emerging grass. The flowers have a variety of names. Some describe the flower’s setting—summer snowflake, star flower, grass lily, or snow drop. others describe what […]
Continue reading Legends shining in the grass: Star-of-Bethlehem or Bird’s milk
In mid-April, I noticed an unfamiliar plant growing in the garden outside my study window. Its name, I discovered, was field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense). It is a member of the mustard family and is generally considered a weed, but, who knew, it is getting a new reputation in some places. It may become a crop […]
Continue reading Old Weed or New Crop: Field Pennycress
About 20 years ago my friend Lisa gave me some starter ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris, also known as fiddlehead fern or shuttlecock fern). I planted them on the north side of the house. They have survived the dogs and the rabbits, and are growing in lush patches filling in between the air conditioner and the […]
Continue reading Landscaping Success: Ostrich Ferns
About fifteen years ago, I went to a fundraiser and bought, for $10, a little cactus. It was an odd little thing, about six inches tall with a triangular stem and a weird head at the top. It looked like a deformed little tree with spines on it. I decided I didn’t like it much […]
Continue reading Living Sculpture: Dragon Bones
Often a well-chosen turn of phrase, or a name, can immediately conjure an image. These are the jewels that writers look for. And they’re the names that last through the centuries because of their aptness. And yet, as language changes, the name may be retained without the surrounding context to provide that image. Knowing where […]
Continue reading What’s in a Name?: Bouncing Bet AKA Soapwort
On a sunny fall day, our prairie garden is calling all bees, flies, butterflies, wasps, beetles, and anybody else who wants some nectar and pollen for dinner. A bunch of brown-eyed susans (Rudbeckia triloba) vie for their share of pollinators by waving their flowers above the fray. They have come into their own now that […]
Continue reading Yellow is for Fall: Brown-Eyed Susan
As summer slides into fall, the array of flowers in our prairie garden and along the ditch shifts to yellows. One notable species is the stiff goldenrod (Oligoneuron rigidum). This late bloomer is native to North America and holds a versatile and important place in our landscape. First of all, because it blooms in late […]
Continue reading Late Summer Extravagance: Goldenrod
We’ve had a very wet summer. More rain than we’ve seen in years has fallen periodically an inch or two at a time–including those weeks when we’ve been away on vacation. The result is that the yard has remained green and lush all summer, and places normally dry are a bit soggy. The peppers have […]
Continue reading Sedges Have Edges: Strawcolored Flatsedge