Native Wildflowers and Plants

[IQDM]

Found a PILE of Virginia Bluebells growing in the creek bottom while I was putting up a panel fence.

Is there such thing as a white bluebell

Maybe it just has not matured yet, but every other bluebell in this area was blue at this same time.

Its an Albino Bluebell!

 

[letemgrow]

I can see a ton of uses for this native vine!! Downed tree tops, around fencing for seedlings and basically anywhere in between. It grows in dense shade, full sun, creek bottoms and hills.

Here it is on a red oak I potted this year from the MDC.

 

[letemgrow]

Well this is for sure Canada Milk Vetch...blooming in the first year!! Can't wait to get it added to the farm and see how they deer take to it. If they browse it heavily that would be great. A native perennial, that attracts insects/pollinators and feeds deer by the ton and I will never have to plant it again.

 

[muddy]

letemgrow, did you have any luck with the seeds i sent you? nothing i planted came up for me.

 

[letemgrow]

letemgrow, did you have any luck with the seeds i sent you? nothing i planted came up for me.

They were planted at the farm with some other goodies and right now its still up in the air....I see a few wf's coming through with the NWSG's, but they are just getting going.

 

[muddy]

I guess my issue is that I don't know what rattlesnake master and blazing star look like when first germinating!

 

[letemgrow]

Blazing star looks like a blade of grass when its really young.

 

[DH1]

I came across some interesting links from Pheasants Forever:
1) one of their pages has a nice summary on Federal Cost share programs and county contact information for every State in the Union.
2) another talked about pollinators (ie benifits tobuilding a complete CRP mix)
Along with these links, in tooling around the site it was appearant the overlap in building deer plots and pheasant habitat, for the Iowan or Minnostan deer plotter with limited equiqment it would seem like they have the potentail to provide some resources with a mutal benifit in mind.

http://www.pheasantsforever.org/page/1/farmbill.jsp

link to a link on PF Pollinator Habitat
http://www.pheasantsforever.org/page/1/2011CRPSignUp.jsp

 

[letemgrow]

Sometimes spraying the cool season grasses with roundup is all it takes to get some wf's going.

You may be surprised at what is already in your seed bank. This area is all remnant, nothing was planted here.

 

[letemgrow]

I scatter seeded this area 2 years ago with locally collected seeds. The area was prepped iwth roundup 2-3 times before seeding.

 

[letemgrow]

Another area done the same way...purple coneflower and gray headed coneflower.

 

[letemgrow]

This is an area of downy sunflower that has always been there, I just sprayed the fescue around it when the natives were dormant in the fall so they reseed on their own in the freshly killed areas.

 

[LoessHillsArcher]

Got a couple to run by anyone who knows a thing or two about wild flowers. I thought I may have these ID'd right but not sure. Again, I'm not 100% on either of these, just took pictures when I saw them and tried flipping through the Illinois Wildflower website to see if any looked familiar.

Smooth Hedge Nettle - http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/prairie/plantx/sl_hdgnettlex.htm

Whorled Milkweed - http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/prairie/plantx/wh_milkweedx.htm

 

[letemgrow]

That Whorled Milkweed is pretty rare if I remember correctly.

 

[letemgrow]

This either wild or maryland senna I planted in a flower bed as seeds in the fall and they are going to have seeds this year for me to collect from....thanks again Brad!!

Think of this plant a partridge pea on steroids....

 

[letemgrow]

For anyone interested in collecting wildflower seeds....some are ready for the taking!!!

1. Illinois Bundleflower
2. Prairie Clovers
3. Coneflowers

These are for sure ready now in most, if not all cases. In a couple more weeks it will be blazing star picking time!

 

[letemgrow]

Just collected some flavor of tick trefoil, purple prairie clover, blazing star and little bluestem.

I rubbed my hands on the ziploc baggie for a while to get rid of a lot of the fuzziness the tick trefoil and blazing stars had on them. They should not blow away as well in the wind now when I scatter seed them this winter.

The site has already been prepped twice with roundup so it will be bare for the seeding.

 

[letemgrow]

Some goodies just showed up at my door from Stock Seed Farms, Prairie Moon Nursery and Prairie Frontier!!!

Prairie Moon

2 oz Canada Milk Vetch
2 oz of white and purple prairie clover
1 oz slender lespedeza
2 oz partridge pea

Stock Seed Farms
1lb White Prairie Clover

Prairie Frontier
2 pkts of showy sunflower, compass plant, pale purple coneflower and various blazingstars....should make for a pretty wildflower garden, many flowers for the pollinators, seeds for game and non-game birds and some browsing for your 4 legged friends!!!

These will be broadcast this winter/spring on a site the dozer prepped when the new fence was put in the past summer....poorer soils that hardly anything grew back on.

 

[letemgrow]

Forgot about the pound of purple prairie clover seed I ordered from Osenbaugh's!!!

They have a great product and for 20 bucks a pound of cleaned seed...that is the best deal I have seen for PPC!!!

 

[letemgrow]

Also check out Hamilton Seed from MO....they have a pound of slender lespedeza for 50 dollars. That may seem high, till you check out what other places are selling it for. Deer and rabbits love that plant and the seeds hang on during winter for a late season source for birds.

http://www.hamiltonseed.com/plant_list.html