Creating a Prairie Garden

The largest single ecosystem on the North American continent was the prairie. Nestled between the lush forests along the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, and stretching from southern Texas to southern Canada, America's prairie was a virtual sea of grasses sometimes taller than a horse. Closer to the ground, a carpet of wildflowers of every color and shape blossomed. Under it all was the rich, black soil that settler farmers tilled and planted into wheat, corn, beans and other crops. The eastern part of the range had more moisture and supported taller grass and a large range of colored flowers. As the region moved west less rain fell and there was more mixed grasses and less flowers. Only about 1% of the continent's original prairie still exists. There are many efforts underway to reestablish and protect prairie habitats.

I live just about right in the middle of that great grassland. Other than the fenced in pastures and the fact that you can still see for miles and miles in any direction, it is hard to imagine what it must have looked like 200 years ago.

I have a lot of traditional flowers in my gardens - things planted by past generations that have adapted well to the prairie and seem as though they were probably always here. Things like the peonies which are blooming magnificently right now, the iris, the tulips and daffodils, and annuals like petunias and zinnias.

However, sometimes it can be a challenge to keep some of those plants protected from the wind and watered enough and so a few years ago, I started collecting and planting native flowers in my gardens. The purple coneflowers nearly take over as well as the pink Missouri primroses. I have started a False Indigo plant that I dug up from our pasture along with a pretty little grass with little white flowers called, simply, white eyed grass. Some wood sorrel started a couple of years ago has started filling in nicely and last year I found and planted a beardstongue which is just starting to bloom. Even some patches of Little Bluestem Grass planted amongst the flowers adds to the beauty of it.

Below are some pictures I've been taking of some of the flowers I have blooming this year. I have identified most of these through the website http://www.kswildflowers.org/ This is a great resource as the flowers as listed by color as well as by name, so it makes it pretty easy to find and identify flowers that I find.

Beardstongue - dug up last year while it was blooming. I was really happy when it came up and bloomed so well this year.

Pink Primroses - always beautiful and very prolific - actually can be rather invasive, but I just fight them back into the areas where I want them and they don't seem to mind - just keep blooming for weeks.

This plant is called Moth Mullin. I found a few of them blooming in the pasture when I was checking calves last spring. Couldn't resist the pretty little white flowers with purple centers. They shoot up about 2'-3' tall and the flowers are about 1" across. It starts blooming at the bottom and the buds above open later - rather like a hollyhock. I found out that this one reseeds itself quite well and have had to be a little ruthless about taking out seedlings so that it doesn't choke out everything else. Growing in the pasture, they are contained by native grasses, etc., but in the garden where they could have free range, they come up everywhere! They're worth the extra work now that they are blooming.