30. The Native Meadow Experiment - Spring Update
It has been a long but satisfying process to develop my native grass and wildflower meadow, starting over 2 years ago in December 2011. This Spring has been really exciting with lots of beautiful flowers and new growth everywhere, things are filling in well!
Wildflowers From Seed
I saved the planting of the annual wildflowers for last, as recommended by several reference articles, and I can see now why this is so important. Annuals by definition complete their life cycle in one year, so they shoot up fast and flower quickly. My annual wildflowers filled in their spots in the garden in just a few months, compared to some of the grasses which are only half way to their mature size after several years of growth, so its a good thing the grasses got a head start!
Generally it is best to plant native wildflower seeds in the early winter to take advantage of Northern California’s rainy season. However, because of our very dry winter, I was hesitant to plant any seeds, which need constantly moist soil until they sprout. I waited and waited and finally in late February we had a forecast for a week of showers. That’s when I planted seeds of California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica ssp. californica) and Sky Lupine (Lupinus nanus), and in the last few weeks they have really been blooming. Based on my trip to Mt. Tamalpais a few weeks ago, my wildflowers are behind the curve, but still doing great and already showing signs of setting seed for next year.
Other Spring Flowers
I’ve had a lot of other nice flowers this spring from the plantings I did last fall. The first to bloom was the Blue Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchnum bellum ‘North Coast’) which produced a gorgeous mass of blue flowers at the center of my garden's spiral pattern, and peaked in late April. The white flowering Sea Thrift, (Armeria maritima ‘Alba’) came soon after and continues to bloom, and a pink flowering variety of the same plant (Armeria maritima ‘Bloodstone’) came a few weeks later.
More recently, the Yarrow has started to bloom, after quickly bushing out with a lot of leafy growth. The white flowering Yarrow I planted (a locally collected Achillea millefolium from Native Here Nursery) has a nice vertical form, with dense white flower clusters on 2 to 3 foot high stalks. The butterflies love these flowers, but now in late May they are starting to flop over as the peak bloom passes. I planted another variety of Yarrow (Achillea millefolium var. rubra ‘Rosy Red’) which has grown lower and bushier, and its flowers are just starting to show a really nice deep red color.
The Irises that I planted last fall did not bloom this year, but they were quite small when I planted them, so we’ll have to wait until next spring for those. Just now sprouting flower stalks are the Buckwheats that I planted, and I expect the Poppies and Lupines to continue flowering for a few months, so there is more color to look forward to this summer!
My meadow experiment is now transitioning from the installation stage to the maintenance stage. It is a good point to summarize all that was done, so I took all of the blog writing on the installation and put it into an article which appeared in the Winter issue of Grasslands, the publication of the California Native Grasslands Association, which is shown below.
Depending on how happy the various plants look over the months and years, I will be removing and replacing things, and also have to decide if I want to let the grasses seed freely, or try to strictly control new plant growth. Always more to learn, so the experiment continues!
References:
Grasslands, Winter 2014, published by the California Native Grasslands Association, www.cnga.org
