“Green thoughts emerge from some deep sources of stillness which the very fact of winter has released”
Mirabel Osler
March…When I see the calendar change to March, I know spring is near, at least in Texas (sorry to my sister-in-law Amy, who lives in the frozen, barren lands near Milwaukee, still has 6 more months of winter – LOL). I also know, to the joys of my HOA, it’s time to clean up last year’s bounty of growth and pleasure my native garden gave to us.
Little Yard – Big Biomass
I find it amazing the amount of biomass produced by a 60’ x 70’ suburban yard. An acre of native prairie can produce 3-6 tons of above ground biomass (and 100 tons of below ground biomass, which we will save for another time). So, my little 0.1 acre yard produced approximately 200 pounds of biomass – not much, right? Wrong. It took two days just to carefully clear the two small beds in the front yard. That’s only about one tenth of my landscape. This does not include the work of hand digging the invasive stuff that has creeped into the landscape.
Determining Friend or Foe
Who said native landscapes were easy? You just sit back and let it do its thing. No, a small suburban pocket prairie can be more work than your traditional yard. You are fighting all the invasives from your neighbors, trying to figure out if a certain plant coming up is a friend or a foe. And for me, trying to learn what native plants are good for your landscape and which ones should never be planted in a pocket prairie. If you have 100 acres, Goldenrod (Solidago altissima) would be a nice addition to your landscape; in a flower bed – NO.
Maintaining a Native Landscape
Someone said I should just hire a landscape company to clean out my beds and maintain them. I could, but I will not. Last fall, fellow NPSOT member, Tony Manasseri, and I were sitting in my backyard discussing native landscape maintenance and we concluded the average landscape company would have no clue how to manage a native landscape. Why not? When we create our native outdoor living spaces, we create an environment interwoven with plants and animals connected through the food web. It does not matter if this was your intent or not, it happens. If this was not your intent, then it may not matter when or how one cleans their landscape.
Practicing Good Stewardship
But if you enjoy seeing birds, butterflies, bees and the hundreds of other pollinators and creatures completing the circle of life, then you must practice good stewardship of your pocket prairie. Limit the use of herbicides and no pesticides or rodenticides. And much to the dismay of your neighbors and/or HOA, your landscape must remain intact until the temperatures are consistently around 60 degrees. This is not a concept your average landscape company knows or understands.
Harboring Life During Winter
With some education, we as NPSOT members might be able to change that. I will continue to leave the plant stalks standing, spent flowers hanging and the leaves clumped around the base of plants. Even though the landscape looks “dead” to the uninformed, it is still harboring life. The butterflies, bees, wasp and other pollinators of last summer must overwinter somewhere and that somewhere is in your native landscape. All insects (except a few migratory ones) escape the cold of winter by insulating themselves under leaves and debris, taking shelter in a hollow plant stalk, burrowing under clump grasses, etc., only to emerge in the warmth of spring.
Time to Venture Out
For those of us who enjoy seeing the circle of life completed, we leave our landscapes intact until the icy hands of winter slowly release its grip and the green thoughts emerge from some deep slumber. Venture out to explore and clean up your landscape and see what has awaken from their long winter’s nap. In my yard, the first plants to awaken were the Perennial Winecup (Callirhoe involucrate), Onions (Allium canadense var. Hyacinthoides), Four-nerve Daisy (Tetraneuris scapose) and Goldenrod. What’s awakening in your yard?
