Entry Meadow: Behind the Stakes

Entry Meadow: Behind the Stakes

by Amy Martin

Let’s talk a bit about the entry meadow behind the garden. It’s a mess, overgrown with brome grass that’s now gone to seed because the city did not respond to pleas to mow it. According to experts, if brome grass is mowed short for a few years, it greatly abates. Brome grass crowds out spring wildflowers and when the cool-season plant is spent it goes brown and flops down, ensuring summer wildflower seeds can not arise. But in the back of the meadow next to the trees, there are some fine wildflowers and native grasses that are mostly outcompeting the brome grass.

Francis and I installed some stakes with orange tape to define wildflowers and native grasses next to the trees. We’ve asked the city to start mowing between those stakes and the street to suppress the brome grass. We’ll see if that happens.
Brome grass’s summer bully buddy: Johnson grass. Spreads by rhizomes and takes over. Worthless to wildlife. Leaf blades sharp enough to cut skin. Fun, huh? Sure wish the city would mow soon.
Big happy patch of big bluestem behind the stakes. Larval food for some butterfly species. There are several of these. As they spread, they will overtake the undesirable bindweed, giant ragweed, and poison ivy.

Big bluestem roots go several yards deep! That will also provide a thick barrier to help stem floodwaters from the entry area (except in major floods when the water backs up Dixon Branch, passes Peavy, and heads up Creekmere and Vinemont). When floodwater covers the entry meadow, it deposits invasive seeds like brome grass.

Check out this huge patch of Maximilian sunflowers next to Peavy. It’ll be covered in yellow blooms by late summer. Its genius is that it establishes early and claims its territory, even though it blooms late. One of the few plants that can dominate invasive KR bluestem, a non-native.
A pokesalad plant (red stem) that will make berries for birds. It may grow large enough to shade out some poison ivy. Also planted some rosinweed roots in the poison ivy to help suppress it (the roots were dilapated; it’ll be iffy).
Fabulous patch of mealy blue sage, a pollinator favorite, in its waning bloom stage.
This was once a beautiful line of native Indiangrass that makes lovely auburn seed plumes in the fall. But it got mowed too much, and giant ragweed and brome grass took hold. Now ensconced behind the stakes, it should be safe to flourish, but will need weeding.
Native goldenrod on the left will make many plumes of yellow flowers in the late summer and fall. Little bluestem, an important larval food source for many pollinators, is on the right.

Goldenrod does not cause allergies because its pollen is not windborne. Giant ragweed blooms at that time and is the primary cause of “hayfever.” Unlike goldenrod, its insignificant blooms do not attract pollinators to carry the pollen around, so into the wind it goes.

If we can get more garden volunteers, I’ll have time to focus on the entry meadow and greenbelt. Volunteer!

While I’m blathering about plants, check out the corner of Creekmere and Sylvania.

A couple years ago, I scattered seeds from the entry garden rosinweed here. Look at it now! The tall green strappy leaves behind it are a native grass.
Rosinweed is a gorgeous plant that needs room to ramble.
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