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#61 | |
WG Hospitality & UAOKA recipient
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Pennsylvania
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![]() So, when I saw the date this morning, I realized I missed my chance. Oh well, there are a lot of worthy entries, so missing a few from me is no biggie. I see I'm not alone...linrose hasn't been entering hers either. ![]()
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"If suburbia were landscaped with meadows, prairies, thickets or forests, or combinations of these, then the water would sparkle, fish would be good to eat again, birds would sing and human spirits would soar." ~ Lorrie Otto ~ A Native Backyard Blog ~ |
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#62 |
WG Hospitality & UAOKA recipient
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Pennsylvania
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Excellent shot! ...and what a great place to live near! Consider yourself lucky to have such a space near you.
__________________
"If suburbia were landscaped with meadows, prairies, thickets or forests, or combinations of these, then the water would sparkle, fish would be good to eat again, birds would sing and human spirits would soar." ~ Lorrie Otto ~ A Native Backyard Blog ~ |
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#63 | |
WG Hospitality & UAOKA recipient
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Pennsylvania
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Beautiful shot anyway.
__________________
"If suburbia were landscaped with meadows, prairies, thickets or forests, or combinations of these, then the water would sparkle, fish would be good to eat again, birds would sing and human spirits would soar." ~ Lorrie Otto ~ A Native Backyard Blog ~ |
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#64 |
Heron
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Tinley Park, Illinois, USA
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Yes, I know what you mean. If it's a field of Eurasian weeds, it can look quite natural, especially from a distance, but I have little enthusiasm for an area like that, as far as the plants go. But you're right, it's better than what surrounds it. Even though the plants are mostly non-native, it provides habitat for tons of native animals, and it's still a decent place for a walk. You never know what kind of animal life you might see.
There are a few tougher native plants in the fields by my home though. Gray Coneflower manages to thrive among the weeds, Black-eyed Susans too, and there are lots of native Wild Strawberry colonies. You'll occasionally see other tough natives too. The fields have their moments too when the non-native flowers are blooming, such as Oxeye Daisy, Deptford Pinks and the occasional European Bellflower colony, although I haven't seen Bellflower in recent years. Sulfur Cinquefoil is another pretty non-native that grows in the fields. At times, they look a bit like what I imagine a European meadow might look like, sort of. There used to be a lot of European Lythrum around the wet spots, but the forest preserve district introduced a beetle here that eats it, and there's currently not much of it left, seems to be under control. The new, really bad ones here are the invasive Phragmites and Canary Reed Grass. We also have a hybrid Cattail that's apparently a cross between native and non-native parents that's a real aggressive problem. We're fighting that at Bartel. Perhaps our toughest one here is Leafy Spurge. It's got a root system like a prairie plant, so herbicides can't seem to kill it. The upper parts of the plant and root system die, but it comes back from the deep roots. Edit: There is one small area that has a few prairie things in it due to me transplanting plugs from an existing prairie patch across the street from the fields. In 1978, someone bought a one-acre lot that was prairie and began building a house on it, so I went in ahead of the bulldozer and dug plugs and transplanted them across the street into the forest preserve property (illegal, but I didn't know it at the time), so there are Blazing Stars (Liatris aspera), Rattlesnake Master and a little bit of Compass Plant in one small area there now. I like to stop and check out the plants in August when the Blazing Stars are blooming. They've spread quite a bit since 1978, which is very gratifying. |
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#65 | ||
WG Hospitality & UAOKA recipient
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Pennsylvania
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Quote:
__________________
"If suburbia were landscaped with meadows, prairies, thickets or forests, or combinations of these, then the water would sparkle, fish would be good to eat again, birds would sing and human spirits would soar." ~ Lorrie Otto ~ A Native Backyard Blog ~ |
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#66 |
Heron
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Tinley Park, Illinois, USA
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We do. People from another nearby prairie restoration that has a similar, clay hilltop to work on collect seed there, so the local seed bank is being preserved and spread. At Bartel, we don't have that kind of soil/hydrology anywhere on the site, so we don't collect there.
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#67 | |
WG Hospitality & UAOKA recipient
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Pennsylvania
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__________________
"If suburbia were landscaped with meadows, prairies, thickets or forests, or combinations of these, then the water would sparkle, fish would be good to eat again, birds would sing and human spirits would soar." ~ Lorrie Otto ~ A Native Backyard Blog ~ |
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#68 |
Heron
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Tinley Park, Illinois, USA
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Thanks, but back in 1978 when I was a total beginner, I had no idea that what I was doing was anything other than hopefully saving some attractive wildflowers. I had no concept of seedbanks or preserving local DNA.
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#69 | |
WG Hospitality & UAOKA recipient
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Pennsylvania
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__________________
"If suburbia were landscaped with meadows, prairies, thickets or forests, or combinations of these, then the water would sparkle, fish would be good to eat again, birds would sing and human spirits would soar." ~ Lorrie Otto ~ A Native Backyard Blog ~ |
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#70 |
Official Plant Nerd
Join Date: Dec 2008
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Where's sage>>>>? I just realized hava announced the winner for this month... not sage.
__________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss |
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Tags |
2012, camera, enter, entry, free contest, march, march 2012, nature, nature photos, photo contest, photo entries, photograph, photographer, pictures, pom, thread |
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