This often leads to concerns about burning their prairie in the spring, as it would seem that putting fire to seed laying on the ground or hanging in the still-standing growth would compromise the seed’s viability.

By doing a fall seeding, the seed in fact has all winter to drop down and make good contact with the soil well before the spring burn. The wind and rain get most of the seed down to ground level. The freeze-thaw cycle then works the seed into the soil. The temperature of a moving fire is not high enough to kill the seed and in some cases heat will help a species.  Ceanothus americanus (New Jersey Tea), for example, benefits from having a treatment of boiling water poured over the seeds to aid in germination for spring planting.

Plants everywhere continue awakening, though, pushing promisingly above the soil surface, pacing their growth, biding their time until the snow melts for good. Identifying native plants in their early stages is a useful skill to have, one that all of us at Prairie Moon are continually honing. Knowledge of the defining characteristics of seedlings is especially helpful when evaluating the progress of native seed plantings in their beginning years.

The following photos show some of the first harbingers of hope around my house.

Early greeters between a walkway and retaining wall include Tradescantia ohiensis (Ohio Spiderwort), Callirhoe triangulata (Clustered Poppy Mallow) and Campanula rotundifolia (Harebell).

This old cluster of Tradescantia ohiensis, Ohio Spiderwort, begins to green up after appearing brown and withered beneath the snow all winter.

Some of the first flower buds to appear were on this Geum triflorum (Prairie Smoke), beneath shoots of Allium stellatum (Prairie Onion) in a south-facing bed near a house wall.

Transplanted from Prairie Moon stock the previous fall, these Gentiana andrewsii (Bottle Gentian) seedlings shoot up below an older Allium stellatum (Prairie Onion).

More Gentiana andrewsii (Bottle Gentian) appear near some Fragaria virginiana (Wild Strawberry) that creeped down from the adjacent woods.

This hardy volunteer Aquilegia canadensis (Columbine) pushes up each year through heavy landscaping stones.

Tiny seeds of Campanula rotundifolia (Harebell) dropped from a planting at the top of this retaining wall and took root between blocks below. Beautiful plants appear there annually now and have in turn dropped their seeds. Younger plants in the photo below display the characteristic rounded basal leaves that give the species its name.

Eco-Grass, a low-maintenance blend of fine fescues, begins to green up in very cool temperatures. The brown tufts in these two photos are from the previous year's unmowed growth.

Even as it first emerges, its coming purple-blue glory is hinted at by Mertensia virginica (Virginia Bluebells), seen in this and the following two photos.

Polemonium reptans (Jacob's Ladder) provided some of the first green on our prairie hillside.

The only early red hues on our hillside were provided by shoots of Vernonia fasciculata (Common Ironweed), transplanted from Prairie Moon gardens the previous October.

This cluster of Sanguinaria canadensis (Bloodroot) has begun popping up at the end of a raised vegetable bed. They apparently migrated there from nearby woods. The plants in these two photos appear eager to turn their faces to the sun but unwilling yet to unwrap their leaf blankets. Another plant with more southern exposure just a few feet away already had opened its leaves and dropped its petals.

Distinctive leaf markings lend a delicate beauty to young Hydrophyllum virginianum (Virginia Waterleaf) but disappear as the plants mature.

Maricel oversees hundreds of boxes packed and shipped during this busy season.

Roots are carefully packed in moistened peat moss and kept chilled until they are shipped.

Site prep on April 19th – at least the soil is not frozen.

Planting a cactus pad into a sandy bed.

The usual flurry of songbirds around our front yard and feeders was abruptly interrupted one morning as several large, dark shadows swooped over the house. Smaller birds scattered as I reached for binoculars and saw two Bald Eagles soar across the road and over a field of Echinacea pallida and the creek, joining a noisy group of crows in the branches of a tree. They all partied there for the next day and a half, feeding on the carcass of a White-Tailed Deer.

Driving home at night weeks later, my headlights suddenly caught a raccoon racing toward the car just before the road dropped into our valley. I heard a thud by the left bumper before I could react. The body was gone when I next passed the spot but I could see it in the field off the shoulder. On my next approach, the coon was closer to the road, being pulled apart by a huge Bald Eagle. I slowed as the startled eagle grabbed its meal in its talons and began to rise with it. Its flight path was toward my vehicle, though, so the eagle dropped the carcass and flew quickly in the opposite direction. Not only do these creatures cut dashing figures in the sky, they help in the greater recycling loop by cleaning up some of our mess below.

In a 1784 letter to his daughter, Benjamin Franklin wished that our young nation had adopted the Wild Turkey, not the Bald Eagle, as its national bird or symbol. Franklin cited the courage,cleverness and resourcefulness of the turkey as being more desirable virtues than the eagle’s preference for carrion, tendency to steal meals and “cowardice” when chased by smaller birds.

Wild turkeys roam our valley, too, frequently appearing in noisy, awkward flocks in our woods and on the roads. Four of them began regularly visiting our songbird feeders as winter waned. Not content with pecking up the spilled seeds alongside the squirrels, the turkeys repeatedly attacked the feeders, roosting on them and breaking the top off of the squirrel-proof model. After several days of chasing them away and finally duct-taping the lid of the feeder, I conceded that I could grudgingly admire their resourcefulness but remained more drawn to the power and dramatic appearance of the eagle.

On a trip from Minneapolis to Winona along Highway 61 on a sunny March day, we noticed dozens of cars stopped at intervals for miles along the roadside. People with binoculars and cameras watched eagles soar, fish and perch as huge shelves of ice floated downriver. We were inspired to pull into the National Eagle Center in Wabasha. We had not seen its beautiful new building with observation decks right on the river’s edge.

Packed with two floors of exhibits, classrooms, artwork and gifts, the center was bustling that day with big crowds taking in special displays and demonstrations. The six resident rehabilitated raptors seemed unfazed by all of the attention as they rotated photo-op duty, posing for pictures with visitors. Learning about eagles inside, seeing the educator birds up close and then watching their cousins in the wild outside provided a fully satisfying and inspiring experience. Some shots from that visit follow.

Just downriver from the interstate bridge in Wabasha, the National Eagle Center provides eagle sightings indoors and out.

Angel, senior resident at the Center, keeps a sharp and steady eye on the river, calling out warnings when wild eagles come too close.

Donald is the only Golden Eagle currently living at the Center.

I recently received a reminder, though, of the importance of looking higher up the food chain to more fully appreciate the contributions of native plant species to wide networks of biological relationships.

The informative and highly entertaining International Festival of the Owls convenes each early March in Houston, Minnesota, not far south of our nursery. Drawing educators, students, rehabilitated raptors and enthusiasts from all over the world, the weekend-long event raises funds for the Houston Nature Center (see below) and strives to “spark a personal connection to owls and the environment we share with them.”

The Houston Nature Center itself is worth the trip to the tiny southeast Minnesota town of about 1,000. Situated on the Root River Trail, a 60-mile paved recreational trail, the center is a gateway to some of the most beautiful areas in the surrounding “bluff country.”  The nature center has attractive native plantings surrounding it and along the start of the trail.  Many of the start-up seeds came from Prairie Moon.  Inside the center, a surprisingly extensive collection of educational displays, hands-on exhibits and mounted animal specimens provides a wealth of information about the natural resources of the area.

Now in its ninth year, the festival was the brainchild of former Prairie Moon staffer Karla Kinstler.  She is the director and naturalist at the Houston Nature Center and the handler and housemate of Alice, a Great Horned Owl, who is an educator bird and the only live animal at the city-run center.

The festival began humbly as a “hatch-day” party for Alice, now 14.  This year’s event had an impressive schedule of speakers and events and live owl programs by the Raptor Center of the College of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Minnesota and Saving Our Avian Resources (S.O.A.R.) of Dedham, Iowa.

The live programs introduced large, receptive audiences to owls of eight different regional species.  One Great Horned Owl showed off its feeding technique, grasping a dead mouse by the head with its beak and turning to display its catch to the crowd before swallowing the mouse whole in three quick, lunging gulps.  The same bird later, prompted by treats, soared silently over the crowd, landing on perches that were moved several times around the auditorium.

A common theme of the presentations was the threat to owls and other raptors that is posed by loss of their habitats due to human development and land-use choices.  The Short Eared Owl was cited as a long-time denizen of prairies and open grasslands.  The replacement of its hunting grounds with row crops and structures has exerted considerable pressure on the species.

I recognized some of the owls as neighbors in our valley and was reminded that our large fields of diverse native plantings help to ensure the diversity of wildlife that we enjoy. In explaining her educational efforts to the audience, Gail Buhl of the Raptor Center articulated a take-home message that applies to all native species.

“It’s important,” she said, “to understand our natural resources so that we know how to explain to others why it is so important to protect our natural resources.”

The most common method for putting down seed to initiate a prairie planting is a fall or frost broadcasting.  This is usually done between October 15 and March 15, after a year of site preparation.  It is not uncommon for people to notice birds visiting the ground that has been recently planted.  Generally, this is not a problem.  Most of the prairie seed is small and when it is evenly distributed over a large area it is randomly placed in a manner that typically does not occur in nature.  When birds eat small seeds typically it is directly from the plant and they can consume many seeds at one time.  A bird may find a few randomly scattered seeds but it will not find many.  The situation is similar for seed broadcast onto snow.  Within an hour of being put down on the surface, the seed will begin to melt into the snow.

Some seeds will inevitably be consumed by birds, insects and rodents, but the seed count for our seed mixes is high to accommodate for this.  When a seed mix has a seed count of 100 seeds per square foot most of those seeds will not ever become a mature plant.  Some attrition is built into the formula.

Gentians are also blooming now and if you love these fall plants as much as I do, you may have the  more common, easy (but slow) to grow Cream Gentain (Gentiana flavida) and Bottle Gentian (Gentiana andrewsii).

And now comes the “hybrid” Bottle Gentian plant:

You can easily see that the Bottle Gentian has taken on the color of the neighboring Cream Gentian.  This planting is about 15 years old; it may take some time for this naturally-occurring hybridizing to take place but if you want your Bottle Gentian to stay true to color, plant it a distance from the Cream Gentian.  A simple but hopefully useful tip for you!

I was looking back through our website’s old blog postings when I noticed my entry about our new rain garden from September of last year.  I thought it would be a good time to give you an update since then.   We have had a fairly wet second season, with many occasions of heavy rain of an inch or more in a relatively short time period.  You have to be fast to even see any standing water in the rain garden basin; it infiltrates and is drawn up by the plants so well.  A  few of the drier species that I put in the bottom basin had too much moisture and rotted but others have grown so thick that there are no gaps. Ours is a fairly low-tech style of rain garden with just a plastic pipe from the downspout to the basin area.  We also leave a few curved sections of wire fencing and some dried blood baits on the outer, drier shoulder section to make it unappealing to hungry deer.

Late last fall and this spring I put in more plants on the outer section.  This spring we did a thorough weeding in the bottom section about twice before it got too thick to need it. We weeded the top section several times and reapplied some shredded bark mulch.  The garden is in the back of our building so it is out of site most of the time but is a break-time destination for some of the employees here; the color and pollinator action are so compelling that we take part of the day to go and check to see what is happening.

The Anemone patens wolfgangiana or Pulsatilla patens, Pasque flower, bloomed profusely this spring and left tiny seedlings as well. I was thrilled by this plant. Every time I went outside and peered into the blossoms I saw a black bee-like pollinator rummaging around the outer edge of the middle of the flower, presumably where the pollen is. I tried to get his picture but he was too fast for me to get a good shot. Last week I added more Pasque flowers grown in pots this summer, and I want to eventually have hundreds around the building to refresh our spirits after winter.

Even the seeds of Pasque Flower are attractive!

Some of my other favorites were the Asclepias incarnata, Swamp milkweed, and the Hypericum prolificum, Shrubby St.John’s Wort. Both of these plants bloomed for a long time and were covered with flowers and so many feeding insects that the entire area had an audible hum!

One of three Astagalus crassicarpus, Ground Plum, made a neat little pearly “plum” seed pod that vanished before it fully ripened.

There was also plenty of Asclepias tuberosa, Butterfly Milkweed. I had wondered how well it would like this location but all the roots wintered-over well and bloomed strong except for one. We have lots of Monarchs and Monarch caterpillars and butterflies of all sorts around the Butterfly Weed plants.

New plants that I added last fall as dormant plants:
Aster azureus, Sky Blue Aster, is all budded but not quite blooming.
Aster oblongifolius, Aromatic Aster, has grown well and is just starting to bloom:

Agoseris cuspidata, Prairie Dandelion, grew well, flowered and made lots of seeds.

This spring and summer I have added:
Andropogon scoparius or Schizachyrium scoparium, Little Bluestem, from greenhouse plugs
Baptisia leucophaea, Cream Wild Indigo, from dormant bare root stock
Castilleja coccinea, Indian paintbrush, from greenhouse plugs

Indian Paintbrush greenhouse-grown plugs

Planting Indian Paintbrush plugs in July

Erigeron pulchellus, Robin’s Plantain, from dormant bare-root stock

Robin's Plantain juvenile. Notice the 2 small Indian Paintbrush seedlings on either side of the plant.

Monarda Bradburniana, Bradbury’s Monarda, from greenhouse plugs

Bradbury's Monarda seedling

Next spring I may top off the mulch a bit and then I hope to just enjoy the show, provided we get rain.  I’ll let you know how many Indian Paintbrush make it to bloom.

By contrast, we on Prairie Moon’s sales and consulting team spend much of our time carefully and deliberately dampening the expectations of prospective and first-time customers. No matter how many times we chant into our phones our mantra that establishing a native plant community from seed can take at least three to five years, we know that our best buzz-kill efforts will only slightly diminish the number of follow-up callers ready to proclaim a failure two months into a planting’s first season.

Because we are so diligent about trying to inject doses of realism into planting plans, it was fascinating, while out in the field this spring, to find myself falling prey to some of the same impatience and unrealistic expectations that I daily, glibly, strive to exorcise. I grow a small number of species for bare-root plant sales through our nursery.  After experimenting early with a few more finicky varieties, I settled on six species that seem popular and relatively easy to propagate and tend in my spare time.

Monarda fistulosa, Wild Bergamot, is ubiquitous in plantings and native remnants all around us, yet that species has proved the most challenging for me to grow reliably and predictably. In our cultural guide we describe the species as easy to grow and assign it germination code A, needing no pre-treatment.

When I first planted it, I was advised also to follow the code D instructions because of Monarda seeds’ tiny size. So I dutifully surface-sowed the seeds in lines in my production beds and covered them with strips of burlap to press them to the soil surface and retain moisture. The trickiest part of this procedure is to remove the burlap after the seeds germinate but before the seedlings get caught in the burlap and uprooted with its removal.

Nervous about that timing, I kept peeking under the strips, puzzling over whether the green sprouts that I saw were weeds or my crop. When the hardiest seedlings started to penetrate the burlap, I decided I’d better take the strips out of the bed and try to cultivate as the season progressed. Weeks went by, gradually eroding my confidence in my ability to identify any Monarda among the tiny green emergents. I resorted to pulling everything that I knew for sure was weedy, resignedly concluding that my planting somehow had failed.

When frost cycles ushered in plant-digging season, I was surprised to discover that indeed I did have a few sale-worthy plants in my poorly managed patch. I noticed that many plants were available from Prairie Moon’s own beds, so I asked the nursery’s garden manager to share his technique. Arnel told me that a fall planting seemed to yield better germination in the spring, even though Monarda is not considered to require over-wintering.

I adopted that approach, abandoning the burlap strips, with greater success in subsequent seasons. This year, though, I was reminded that, regardless of how experienced I think I’m becoming or how confident I feel in expected outcomes, it’s still awfully easy for me to fall prey to common pitfalls and hasty, false assumptions.

I sold all of the Monarda fistulosa plants in my bed last fall, so I decided to try a frost seeding for this year’s crop. When the snow drifts had settled to a few inches’ depth in early February, I brushed off the garden bed and lined out my rows of Bergamot seed, dusting a blanket of snow back on them to tuck them in until spring.

When I seeded other species in my production beds in early May, I tried to take Monarda inventory and was discouraged to be able to identify only a few, scattered sprouts. They were about the size of a dime or smaller and far scarcer than the more vigorous weeds popping up all around them. Complicating matters was that the adjacent species in the bed is Heliopsis helianthoides, Early Sunflower. Some of them had gone to seed, greatly increasing my uncertainty about whether each sprout that I saw was a Bergamot or an encroaching Sunflower or a weed.

I began to worry that I would not have enough M. fistulosa plants to fill the orders that already had been assigned to me, not to mention the full inventory figure that I had projected for the fall harvest. I decided that I had better try a spring sowing to increase the plant numbers. I lined out more of the tiny seeds, lightly pressing them into the soil surface.

Several months of hot, wet weather ensued and by July, crowded, thick rows of Monarda waved at me, evoking mixed emotions of relief and sheepishness.

As I thinned the rows, spacing plants to provide more room for all to develop, I reflected on how my superimposed agenda had prompted me to lose faith in what I knew to be a protracted natural process. Soon I ran out of room for all of the seedlings and had to choose the hardier specimens, culling the rest. I vowed to improve my skills at plant and weed identification, to be more trusting of predictable progressions and certainly to be more compassionate when counseling anxious customers to be patient with their plantings.

Here are two views of my Monarda fistulosa bed in mid-August. The taller plants were seeded onto frozen soil in February. Seeds for the shorter plants were surface-sown in early May, when the wintered-over seedlings were about the size of the dime pictured below.

I slammed on my brakes on my way to pick up my son the other day. Could those be Pussytoes at this little semi-urban park site? Yes! I quickly examined the site and decided to go back later with my camera. My husband said,  “You are taking a picture of what?” Pussytoes! (Antennaria plantaginifolia), a wonderful short, drier prairie plant, often used as a ground cover. The flowers will fade in a few weeks but the foliage remains attractive throughout the summer as the plant spreads by rhizomes. In this area,  Pussytoes have actually benefited from occasional mowing by the city. Parts of this species are poisonous to rabbits and deer so your plants should not be bothered:

Close up of Pussytoes flower:

And the leaves:

Not far away from this park, Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) is blooming in wet ditches near a busy highway.  What a welcome sight amongst the invasive garlic mustard, reed canary, etc. normally seen in these roadsides:


As Bill was traveling through Northern Illinois, he found Sand Phlox (Phlox bifida) growing at this roadside stop.  He was impressed that it seemed the maintenance crew at this small rest stop mows around the plants rather than over them!  We learned from Alan that this species of Phlox is what the nursery industry has cultivated over the years for the bright pink/purple “creeping phlox” you see in many gardens today:

Sand Phlox close up:

Don’t get discouraged by the lack of natives around you. Keep your eyes open and you are sure to find some!  If you think that you may have stumbled upon a native species or, better yet, a prairie remnant, send digital photos our way! We are quite good at species identification.