Well, its official, the weather service has announced that the majority of Southern Wisconsin, where Prairie Nursery is located, is in moderate drought conditions.  Many communities postponed fireworks for the 4^th of July and a nearly statewide burning ban is in effect.  Although wildfires are devastating the dry western states; fortunately there have been no major fires in our state as yet.  We have not had any significant rainfall in over a month in some places in the south.

As I look out my office window onto a field of Rough Blazingstar-Liatris aspera, there is little evidence that these hearty drought tolerant species are affected by the drought.  Their stems are firm and needle-like leaves are perfectly adapted to sunny, hot desert-like/sandy conditions in which they are situated.  Native plants are amongst the most highly adapted and drought tolerant.

Butterflyweed & Prairie Dropseed

In my prairie gardens at home, the Lanceleaf Coreopsis-Coreopsis lanceolata, Butterflyweed-Asclepias tuberosa, Wild Petunia-Ruellia humilis and Pale Purple Coneflower-Echinacea pallida are blooming profusely seemingly unaffected by the drought in my sandy back yard.  Grasses including Little Bluestem-Schizachyrium scoparium, Prairie Dropseed-Sporobolus heterolepis, Big Bluestem-Andropogon gerardi and Indiangrass-Sorghastrum nutans look good, and hanging in there, as their 3-5 foot deep roots are able to find water in the soil well below the surface.

Hoary Vervain-Verbena stricta

In my previous posting I discussed the importance of choosing plants for your soil condition on your site.  Selecting adaptable plants matching the soil in your yard is the first step to easy gardening.  The second most important step is to choose plants for their moisture tolerance.  We note this in all our plant descriptions in our catalog and website.

A plant such as Queen of the Prairie-Filipendula rubra or Marsh Phlox-Phlox glaberrima will be quite unhappy in my desert of a backyard, so although I love their colorful blooms I would choose Hoary Vervain-Verbena stricta and Downy Phlox-Phlox pilosa for their drought tolerance.

Downy Phlox-Phlox pilosa

The dire drought situation for many of us illustrates the importance of choosing plants that are adaptable to our soils.  In my own prairie gardens we have spent the last month or so removing plants that are not adaptable to my sandy soil, such as Ox Eye Sunflower-Helianthus helianthoides and Culver’s Root-Veronicastrum virginicum, and are replacing them with drought tolerant survivors.  I know this decision will make my prairie truly representative of the plants that have historically inhabited the dry prairies of our continent.

Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a perfect world? Comfortable no matter what the temperature in summer, content in whatever situation life threw at us? Calm and collected even under duress or stress? Do we have your attention? Yes!

There is a select group of native perennials that can grow in just about any well drained soil condition, sand, loam or clay. These hardy and adaptable natives do not need expensive topsoil, soil amendments and fertilizer to thrive in our gardens; they are content to live in the native soil in which they are planted.

If the goal is to create an easy care, low maintenance landscape we can achieve it by choosing plants from this group of perennials.

Imagine early blooming perennials Smooth Penstemon, Lanceleaf Coreopsis and Blue False Indigo. Lanceleaf Coreopsis will bloom all summer long if we dead-head the spent blooms!

Blue False Indigo

Our mid summer gardens are dotted with pollinator and butterfly favorites including Purple Coneflower, Red Milkweed, Brown Eyed Susan and Culver’s Root.

Monarchs and Swallowtails will flock to Butterflyweed, Dense Blazingstar, Prairie Blazingstar and Yellow Coneflower. Late summer blooms can be achieved using Sweet Black Eyed Susan, Ironweed and Stiff Goldenrod.

Black Eyed Susan with Butterflyweed

Last but not least, don’t forget the grasses. Little Bluestem or Prairie Dropseed will never need a drop of water even in the hottest weather! Grasses scattered throughout our gardens help support the wildflowers and crowd out weeds with their deep roots.

Prairie Dropseed

What more can we ask of our humble North American native wildflowers?  We ask for beautiful lush blooms, we have them, we ask for easy gardening with little effort. No problem!  Plants that crowd out weeds and save water resources? Yes, this is our kind of gardening!  Now, where is that tall glass of iced tea and my chaise lounge? Yes, there, all better…Ahhh!

Wildflowers & Grasses for all Soil types:
Sand, Loam or Clay in full sun, with medium soil moisture

Wildflowers
Allium cernuum – Nodding Pink Onion
Asclepias tuberosa – Butterflyweed
Aster Novae-angliae – NewEnglandAster
Baptisia australis – Blue False Indigo
Coreopsis lanceolata – Lanceleaf Coreopsis
Dalea purpurea-Purple Prairie Clover
Echinacea paradoxa – Ozark Coneflower
Echinacea pallida – Pale Purple Coneflower
Echinacea purpurea – Purple Coneflower
Eryngium yuccifolium – Rattlesnake Master
Helianthus helianthoides – Ox Eye Sunflower
Liatris pycnostachya – Prairie Blazingstar
Liatris spicata – Dense Blazingstar
Monarda fistulosa – Bergamot
Penstemon digitalis – Smooth Penstemon
Penstemon smallii – Small’s Penstemon
Parthenium integrifolium – Wild Quinine
Rudbeckia subtomentosa – Sweet Black Eyed Susan
Rudbeckia hirta – Black Eyed Susan
Rudbeckia triloba – Brown Eyed Susan
Silphium laciniatum – Compassplant
Silphium terebinthinaceum – Prairie Dock
Silphium perfoliatum – Cupplant
Ratibida pinnata – Yellow Coneflower
Solidago rigida – Stiff Goldenrod
Solidago ohioensis – Ohio Goldenrod
Tradescantia bracteata – Prairie Spiderwort
Vernonia fasciculata – Ironweed
Veronicastrum virginicum – Culver’s Root

Grasses
Schizachyrium scoparium – Little Bluestem
Sporobolus heterolepis – Prairie Dropseed

Wild Quinine in front of Purple Coneflower

In my work at Prairie Nursery, I advise customers when planning their prairies and gardens using native plants to “work with your soil conditions”, install plants in your garden that will like living in your soil without the need to amend the soil with compost.  “Work with Mother Nature rather than fighting against Mother Nature!”  “Conquer your soil conditions using native plants that love living in that horrible clay, challenging wet soil or dry sandy soil!”  These statements are my mantra.

I wish I would have listened to my own advice.   My back yard in Crystal LakeTownship,Neshkoro,WI is situated on an ancient sand dune (Cambrian Glacial outwash to be exact!).  My sandy soil is the worst kind of sand; just imagine installing plants in a garden when digging a hole for a plant, the sand filters/collapses into the hole like I’m digging on a sunny Gulf of Mexico beach!

In my seven gardens throughout my yard, I incorporate many plants that will thrive on my sandy-beach soil, but occasionally I am lured to the dark side…..lured by the late spring plant sales in Prairie Nursery retail store each June, tempted by the blooms of loam and clay loving specimens such as Purple Coneflower, Ironweed, Joe Pye Weed, Prairie Blazingstar, Wild Quinine and Orange Coneflower.  These plants will survive in my sandy soil, but in order to maintain them I must water them; and I mean water daily, and if I fail to water them, the leaves droop and lay flat after a hot July day.

Growing nearby these out of place plants are the more than slightly smug natives that LOVE sandy soils; plants that include Lupine, Beardtongue, Dense Blazingstar, Lavender Hyssop, Prairie Smoke, Hoary Vervain, Showy Goldenrod and Brown Eyed Susan.  These beautiful denizens of dry-land are blithely thriving as if to say “hah, I do not need your soaker hoses, drip irrigation or extra layers of mulch and compost, I need none of these, and I am perfectly content in Sarie’s desert-like backyard!”  These plants delight in their drought tolerance.

There is a lesson here is a hard one, as I really want the Purple Coneflower, but must choose Pale Purple Coneflower,  I lust after Prairie Blazingstar, but must choose Northern Blazingstar and so on. In other words, follow my own advice; work with your soil conditions.  Do not attempt to manipulate or bend plants to my will, as the plants have attested, they are not content in my manipulations.

This is my year to bow down to the native plants, stop the incessant watering and bend to Mother Nature’s will. I am (as we speak) with my partner and head gardener, husband Wayne removing them.  Renovating each bed is an enormous task, but I feel quite strongly, that I must.  In the end our water bills will be less, our watering time in the garden will be cut, and somewhere in the great outside in my yard, I will hear a sigh….and yes, that is the faint sigh of contently growing plants, and I think I hear Mother Nature saying, well done, Sarie, well done.