I just stopped back to have a look at the plants again. I did take a couple of quick phogtos but was going to say that the plant itself looked like tall blades of grass. So Yellow Star Grass may be a good id.

Nj, if I've got it right, you are planning a higher-6" to 8"-mowing just for this coming growing season, and perhaps the one following, to interupt weed seed cycles. IF that is so, it is indeed a normal part of meadow establishment. I guess to answer your question, the only one that will flower despite this early-stage mowing is what you've already identified-Rudbeckia hirta. Not saying none of these others won't also, just that in my experience R. hirta is one that can be dependably counted on to flower despite these early-stage mowings. The thing I'm not getting though is the presence of the tree and shrub species within this mix. Not at all saying I don't like them, just I don't see how you can have a meadow in which woody plants are purposely part of the mix. Are you intending to have these woody species around the perimeter? That could work. Then, once you've got your meadow up and running, fire is the best tool, but timely mowing can and often does suffice, depending on other circumstances. Or, one can purposely let the meadow undergo natural succession. That's what happens in nature, in areas of the country like yours and mine which were formerly primarily forested. Meadows would indeed exist, but as a seral stage following a disturbance of some kind. When we create these things, we have to bring the disturbance to them if we want it to remain as meadow, prairie, etc. Quite an extensive plant list BTW. +oM

First of all....Are you interested in native plants, or "wild flowers" Native plants usually need a period of cold before they'll start to sprout...so you might not see anything until next spring. Just keep the everything trimmed back to about six inches. Pampas grass is a non-native aggressive. You will rue the day you planted it...it will take over everything. Butterfly bush isn't native, either, but I have it in my neighbor friendly front yard.

Wow talk about memory lane!... Well, lets see that post was from three years ago, which was the year we moved into a new house - and why I was starting new lasagna beds... to kill grass and plant wildflowers. We had fenced in the rear yard of the new house for our dogs. And I created lasagna beds all around the fence line with the intention of growing tall plants for screening. Some of the wildflowers did very well and look great today. Cupplant (which is a pretty hearty aggressive flower) probably faired the best. But I also have rosinweed, ironweed, purple coneflowers, wild geraniums, NE asters, big leaf asters and some showy trefoils that are growing quite well in that bed. (Some things that were planted that didn't show were compass plant and prairie dock.) That year was really hard on my planting plan for the new house, because I had transplanted a bunch of stuff from our old house to the new one, and we ended up having a severe drought that year. So I lost a lot of transplants and a lot of the seedlings that I had germinated indoors... but it was mainly due to my inability to water as much as they needed. If I recall I did have more species of seeds in that bed, than actually germinated and grew. But I think that was due more to the drought than anything else. My experiment was severly tainted by weather. Moving into the new house, doing some remodeling and I ended up having surgery that year, took a toll on a lot of plants and gardening plans that year. This year my gardening focus has been on woody materials. I decided that I had tons of perennial vegetation and plenty of mature trees, but I didn't have enough under story or smaller woody growth. So last fall I put in a service berry and pagoda dogwood to go along with the redbud that I already had. This spring I added some NJ tea, some Illinois rosa, and a witch hazel. I am in the process right now of killing all the grass on the south side of my house and I am going to turn the south side yard into prairie grass. I do my landscape in phases. Getting one area established and looking nice, before I move on to the next.