{"id":477,"date":"2009-10-20T21:29:02","date_gmt":"2009-10-21T03:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/?p=477"},"modified":"2009-10-21T07:36:52","modified_gmt":"2009-10-21T13:36:52","slug":"happy-grasses-after-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/?p=477","title":{"rendered":"Happy Grasses after Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

An introduction to some more of our “big” grasses, now flowering beautifully after the rain.\u00a0\u00a0 Two are climax tallgrasses, and one is (in my opinion) one of the most beautiful grasses in the country and deserves to be used more as a landscape accent.<\/p>\n

Meet Lindheimer Muhly (Muhlenbergia Lindheimeri<\/em>).\u00a0 All the Muhlys are pretty grasses; some are more striking than others, but Lindheimer Muhly is the queen of the lot:<\/p>\n

\"Lindheimer-muhley337\"<\/p>\n

It had no supplemental water, but we did plant the root division from which this came in a lower area of the grass garden where–when it did rain–it got a little runoff.\u00a0\u00a0 The plumes are 4-5 feet tall, and in different angles of light look pale gold or pale pinkish.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Last year, with no fall rain, it put out only a few of these lovely plumes, but this year it responded to the late rain with a burst of them.\u00a0\u00a0 The clumps spread (and it also seeded out some younger ones over the years.)<\/p>\n

Here’s a climax tallgrass, recovering from drought and seeding abundantly, switchgrass, Panicum virgatum<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In a wet year, the main mound will hit 5-6 feet in our climate, with flower stalks above that; this year the mounds were lower, but the late rain brought out the seeds:<\/p>\n

\"switchgrass-garden338\"<\/p>\n

We do root transplants of switchgrass, but I will also collect and spread the seed in other low areas on the 80 acres.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some populations of switchgrass prefer to grow almost at water’s edge, and others do better on upland sites.<\/p>\n

Though very tough, Indiangrass, Sorghastrum nutans<\/em>,\u00a0 reacts strongly to wet and dry conditions by limiting its height.\u00a0\u00a0 In a wet year, the grass itself will be over four feet tall; this year most of our Indiangrass stayed knee-length or below, but with the fall rains put out its striking golden spear-head flowering spikes:<\/p>\n

\"Indiangrass354\"<\/p>\n

When you see it this low, it’s hard to believe it’s really a tallgrass–but it is.\u00a0\u00a0 In a previous year, we have a picture of it towering over my head.\u00a0 The white flowers blooming with it are heath aster, and the few white-tipped grasses (left side)\u00a0 are silver bluestem, Bothriochloa saccharoides<\/em> (or, newer name, Bothriochloa laguroides<\/em>,\u00a0 Herter.)<\/p>\n

I tried to get images of silky bluestem (non-native) seedheads, but it was breezy and they dance…to me it looks like silver bubbles tipped with copper.\u00a0 This is the best I could do, and it doesn’t give the full effect–but you can see the coppery “tips”:<\/p>\n

\"silky-bluestem-seedhead360\"<\/p>\n

The slender stem, very flexible, dances in any breeze, and the stiff white hairs catch the light into a slender “bubble”, while the copper glows on top.<\/p>\n

It’s not that good a grass–it’s non-native and somewhat invasive (um…quite invasive) but it’s not as tolerant of drought as the natives.\u00a0 When mowed to the height of native short-grasses, or in a hot dry summer, it recedes.\u00a0\u00a0 This past six weeks of rain brought it out again, though some native grass “lawns” resisted:<\/p>\n

\"shortgrass-lawns388\"<\/p>\n

The low green patches are native short-grasses: curly mesquite, buffalograss, Texas grama.\u00a0\u00a0 The slightly taller grass surrounding them is mostly silky bluestem; the grass with the rosy-colored flowers, a little taller than the silky bluestem, is King Ranch bluestem (another invasive, non-native, supposedly an “improved” pasture grass. )\u00a0\u00a0 It’s beautiful this time of year, with those purple-rose\u00a0 seedheads\u00a0 swaying in the wind, but its actual forage production isn’t that great.<\/p>\n

What colors are out among all this green and seeding grass?\u00a0\u00a0 That will have to be another post, but I have some pictures…including one more of Lindheimer Muhly:<\/p>\n

\"Lindheimer-muhley347\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An introduction to some more of our “big” grasses, now flowering beautifully after the rain.\u00a0\u00a0 Two are climax tallgrasses, and one is (in my opinion) one of the most beautiful grasses in the country and deserves to be used more as a landscape accent. Meet Lindheimer Muhly (Muhlenbergia Lindheimeri).\u00a0 All the Muhlys are pretty grasses; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,7,6],"tags":[13,54,32,70,42,33],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","category-plantlife","category-water","tag-beauty","tag-grass","tag-native-plants","tag-photography","tag-prairie-restoration","tag-rain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":485,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions\/485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}