Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Native enough



Kapow!

I'm not a purist when it comes to natives. As long as it comes from North America and doesn't have a history of being invasive, than it's okay in my yard.




This is Allium stellatum, or prairie onion, and it's native a few hundred miles west of here. This was one of the flowers I started from seed the winter before last for Gabe's Garden.



I wanted hundreds of little onion flowers, but only a few germinated. And then I lost most of the seedlings among the grass weeds, finding them only when the "grass" I pulled up had a little bulb on the bottom. Only a few made it, and the three that bloomed are visually lost beneath the serviceberry saplings. As a bit of color in the garden, they are ineffective.




But up close - amazing! And they have withstood almost two months of drought.

1 comment:

UrsulaV said...

I have a nearly identical philosophy of natives, and a couple of South American salvias have snuck in at various places. (I do love salvias.) Plus there's stuff like catmint that's just so darn visually USEFUL in the garden, and takes all kinds of heat and abuse and the pollinators love it.

I figure if I can keep it to at least half native-y natives, and keep the invasives squelched, I'm doing pretty well. As long as there's enough native leaves for the bugs to eat, I'm allowed a few purely aesthetic additions.