How’s everything going in your microprairie this week?
When I think of gardens, I mostly think of flowers and vegetables.
But in the real world outside our yards, prairies need more than just flowers, they also need grasses. In fact, native prairies are made up of about 50% grasses. A lot of species of wildlife, both insect and animal, depend on not just flowers for their food, but also grasses to munch on and to shelter in. If we leave grasses out of our microprairies, we’re only getting half the picture.
So let’s start with my favorite, prairie dropseed. It’s cute, it behaves itself, which is important for a small garden, birds love the seeds, and dropseed is an important host plant for many butterflies, including several rare skipper butterflies.
So here’s some info I gleaned from the University of Wisconsin’s Extension Service horticulture page.
How to use prairie dropseed
Prairie dropseed is a bunch-forming grass, which means that rather than spreading out into a wide mat as is grows, it stays in a bunch and forms a nice bright green mound. (This is referred to as a mounding habit, a technical term meaning that it’s shaped like a mound, or in dropseed’s case, like Cousin It.)
In late summer it gets thin, wispy stalks with “flowers” that stand a foot or more above the mound of grass. These stalks bob in the breeze, attracting birds that love the seeds. Even though dropseed does produce seeds, it doesn’t reseed aggressively, so you don’t have to worry about it taking over your garden like you might with grasses like big bluestem or switchgrass.
Care
Prairie dropseed is good for zones 3-9. It needs full sun, so don’t try planting it in a shade garden, and it prefers dryer, sandier soil, but it should do just fine in any soil type as long as it’s not constantly wet soil.
I’m going to use it as a filler between my taller flowers, like coneflowers and Black-eyed Susan, but I’ll keep it kind of in the middle and back of the garden so it doesn’t overwhelm my shorter plants, like prairie smoke. It’s a slow grower if you choose to grow it straight from seed, taking up to four years before it starts blooming, so if you want something sooner, get some plants instead. I picked up a six pack for half off at the garden center’s late-summer perennial sale.
You can also get some from friends. I got my first dropseeds from a friend who needed to divide her plants. A dropseed clump gradually expands in size, spreading out from the center, and after a while they can get too big for their space. You can dig a plant up and divide it into small plants or even just hack off some chunks without too much fuss, then replant the original. Like most prairie plants, though, the roots run deep and can form a thick, dense mat, so it can be hard work, but it’s a good way to share some plants.
In the fall, you can leave the seed heads and grass leaves in place. They provide food for birds and shelter for overwintering butterfly larvae and other small wildlife. In the spring, you could trim the dead grass back to make room for new growth, but be aware that there could be butterfly larvae sheltering in there, so be careful about cutting it too short. My friend would even go so far as to cut back the dead grass, then burn the trimmed tops with a little handheld blowtorch, his version of a “prairie burn.” I might try that, too, but I have to figure out first if there’s a way to do it without disturbing anything hiding out in there.
We’ll explore more grasses for your microprairie in the future, including little blue stem and blue grama, and if you have lots of room, big bluestem and switchgrass. They played an important role in the original prairies, and they can do the same in your microprairie.
And yes! Late summer is a great time to plant a microprairie! I’ll talk more about that next week.