So lovely!

Thanks for taking us along on your stroll!

I love it! Thanks for sharing

It's all so pretty. How do you keep out weeds in such a large area? I can't even keep up in my relatively small beds.

Wow, those worked out really nice, what a diff a little rain makes, huh? Looks like an actual real life prairie. I was wondering if you sowed liatris in that area? I'm curious to see how they do if you did. That plant I dug up to save from development was growing in stiff clay, the sticky red kind that glops up the shovel when you dig, or to be more accurate, breaks the handle of the cheapie spade you bought for the trunk of the car to have on hand just in case. Those liatris were nice & upright growing in the clay but they crawl like snakes in my yard but then so do some of the Kansas ones that were growing in that good loamy soil the ditch along that country road. You got both types of seed.

Los Lunas bluestem from HCG came up real strong this year. I've got lots of seedlings which look really beefy compared to other types, its a seed variety rather than grown from clones. I was wondering yesterday how it would do down there? It was selected for dry hostile soils and desert conditions and its a nice light blue in summer with good fall coloring. Speaking of beefy, you ought to see the size of the stems on the Standing Ovation, the leaves are really wide for a bluestem too. One look in person rather than pictures online and you know exactly why those are touted to be flop proof. Its another thats supposed to be good for less than good soil in harsh conditions. Of course, the downside is the high cost and fact that I don't think they will come true from seed. Time will tell....

Los Lunas in mid August, baby plants. One was lodging but the others stood straight. We got a lot of rain in spring, hopefully they will be more upright without all the water. Thats a Gulf Muhly to the right. I dug it out yesterday and plugged in 6 more Los Lunas for a colony. I want that prairie look like you have.

MissouriBound, I garden with weeds. I am definitely not an OCD gardener. I do have to pick my problems and ignore the rest because of the size. I do some pulling of miscreants and it does keep me busy but My "Yard" is not mowed and full of burred clover and KR bluestem but this spring I am pulling sticky weed with abandon. I would be in trouble if I had a snake problem but so far, not venomous snakes. I have watched cranesbill, fireweed and countless sticky weed grow up in that close prairie are and only pulled the sticky weed and prickly lettuce. I do need to go and pull thistle flowers and plants....a mañana, weather permitting. One of the things that I do not like doing is disturbing the ground. I find that that brings up old problems by exposing the seed bank in the soil. I find it interesting that the bur clover and the sticky weeds were not on the property and started around the buildings where the land was scraped and all the building activity happened. I think I threw in the towel on burr clover. One reason is that it improves the soil by fixing nitrogen and myosin needs fixing big time. It was heavily over grazed.

TxR, I planted the liatris that you sent up in the caliche area where I see them growing and I guess they didn't like the caliche. I should have planted them in the clay.oops.

I have two Las Lunas bluestem from HCG and one is doing good and one is struggling. I took some vacations last year after I planted them and then forgot about them during all the drought part of the summer. The one planted by the rocks is fine and the one up from it in an upgrade area is struggling. It got all dried up last summer but it is going to make it. They are blue.Nothing the size of yours. I have one Thin man that is doing well. The other two are taking their time.

Mara, I see several plants that are identical to some that I have...(ponder), now I wonder where you might have gotten them from....perhaps someplace in Central Oklahoma.

Many of those plants migrated via USPS north to C. Oklahoma from the Hill Country Texas or there abouts and have moved further up into Arkansas. That artemisia & Standing Cypress look strangely familiar to something that arrived here in the mail and so does the Calylophus berlanderi except for the purple eye, that looks like a different one?

Lol, ok, I had it backwards...thanks Mara

A lot of plants moved south into my garden too, like that gorgeous loosestrife. I will look for some seeds and send the black eyed ones north. They do not seem to germinate as generously as the yellow ones. If I sent plants, they were most likely the yellows because most are yellow that come up.

This one's really common and you probably have it because you said if I ever needed seeds you had them when I told you I'd planted a packet I bought locally from a seed rack of the mahogany type. Those plants always got real tall and leafy, flopped over and I didn't like them much. Later I planted seeds I collected from the H.M. and got a variation of ratibida I like much better, the plants stay upright, are more airy and so are the leaves which are more deeply cut and thinner. Most are solid yellow but there's also degrees of brownish red to orange markings in some plants. They have longer 'skirts' and longer cones.

I need to take a picture but this is what they look like (pic from online)

The loosestrife is one I picked up at TLC, it was an unlabeled plant that looked near dead located in the damaged plants area where you can pick up $1 to $3 plants that have been broken or damaged or just look bad, many in large 3 and 5 gallon pots, at the annual June 1 Midnight Madness sale when the prices are marked half off on the stock they want to get rid of before the heat really sets in.

One you sent that really did well is the Skeleton-leaf Goldeneye, I should have commented sooner because we didn't know if it'd be hardy based on information about it. Its now a large shrub-like plant with a woody base, in fact I had to move a pine muhly that was planted too close last weekend. Two of the Texas lindheimerii ironweed plants also made it and are coming along nice. I'd thought both of the original plants you sent were dead but late last year it made a surprise comeback, you'd sent a third and it did fine. I got a couple blooms last fall.

Mara, Impressive labor of love. I feel bad for flood victims but i am yet to complain about rain. It beats dragging stupid hose.

I had to see if we were talking about the same sticky weed. A search pulled up this interesting article on the medicinal properties of the weed.