Sidebells penstemon (Penstemon secundiflorus) and claret cup cactus (Echinocereus trigolochidatus) blooming in my restored native “unlawn” with blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) and other high-desert bunchgrasses.
Here in the south-central Rocky Mountains, we’re officially in “severe” drought. In the first six months of this year, we’ve racked up a whopping 2.5 inches of precipitation, less than half of normal. An inch and a half of that came in a ten-day period in May after highs in the 80s and howling winds replaced the wet snow we used to get in March and April.
When your average annual precipitation, rain and snowmelt combined, only totals about ten inches, every inch counts. In this high-desert climate, we’re used to dry, but the last few years have been scary.
Despite the drought, my restored native bunchgrass yard, what my late husband Richard called our “unlawn,” is flourishing. That’s partly because I’ve given it a bit of supplemental water: twice in April, I hauled hoses and soaked the grassland portion by portion, simulating wet snow. Also, the rains in May came at just the right time to give these water-wise natives what they needed to gamble on flowering and pollination to produce seeds and ensure their genes would live on to seed the next generation.
The unlawn in evening light, when the wildflowers pop with saturated color.
True to this record season of drought and heat, the flowers are about two weeks ahead of normal, a term that may not be particularly meaningful in this brave new era of global climate change.
(“Normal” in the sense of “typical” or “usual,” words whose meanings are based on how things used to be. How things used to be is the past, and in terms of climate, we’re in a present which may not bear much relationship to the climate of the immediate past. We’ll only know what the new normal is as we look back from some time in the future. Which of course, is true about most areas of our lives, but that’s a whole other different essay.)
Blanket flower (Gallardia aristata) and wholeleaf indian paintbrush brighten my unlawn, and attract pollinators like this native bee
Right now, the late spring and early summer wildflowers are stealing the show, including the wholeleaf indian paintbrush and blanket flower in the photo above.
Palmer’s penstemon (Penstemon palmeri), also called wild pink snapdragon
It’s also the beginning of penstemon season. The relatively wide-tubed pink, blue and blue-purple species bloom first, beginning with sidebells penstemon (photo at the beginning of the post), and then Palmer’s penstemon or pink wild snapdragon with its impossibly fat, lilac-pink floral tubes, followed by Rocky Mountain penstemon with vivid blue-purple flowers. These penstemons are pollinated by many different species of native bees, and their floral design is especially accessible to chunky, furry bumblebees.
Rocky Mountain penstemon (Penstemon strictus) with needle and thread grass (Hesperostipa comata) waving in the background
They time their flowering to when these native bees need pollen and nectar for provisioning their “nests,” individual chambers in the soil or dead plant stems where a female bee lays a single egg, and then rolls in a ball of pollen much bigger than that tiny egg to serve as a food store for the developing larvae. Once she’s done with that task, she seals the chamber and then goes on to lay the next egg, and the next.
A white-lined sphinx moth (Hyles lineata), its proboscis dangling, hunts for the blossoms with the most nectar among the Rocky Mountain penstemon.
Of course, other hungry diners like this hovering white-lined sphinx or hawk moth have no compunction about raiding the nectar from penstemons, even though they don’t return the favor with pollination. Unlike the bees, which crawl right into the flower, dusting the plant’s female parts with pollen carried from another flower of the same species and thus cross-pollinating the flower, and then emerging coated with more pollen, sphinx moths drink with an incredibly long proboscis, a straw as thin as a wire, thereby avoiding messy pollen and the process of fertilization altogether.
Once the hummingbirds begin to nest, the red and scarlet penstemons begin to bloom, their color and narrow floral tube signaling “food here!” to the hovering avian dynamos. But for now, the hummingbirds (and I) have to be content with the neon-bright (and also nectar-laden) flowers of wholeleaf indian paintbrush.
Wholeleaf indian paintbrush (Castillega integra) as bright as a neon sign that shouts “eat here” to hummingbirds.
Richard and I imagined restoring a healthy community of native bunchgrasses and wildflowers to re-green what was once blighted industrial ground long before I learned of Catherine Zimmerman’s Meadow Project. Of course, ours is no “meadow” in the lush sense: it’s a tough high-desert grassland where plant cover rarely reaches 50 percent of the ground, and nothing grows taller than about two feet. But what our “unlawn” follows the same philosophy as Zimmerman’s project: replacing sterile and resource intensive lawns with thriving and lively native grasslands.
© 2012, Susan J. Tweit. All rights reserved. This article is the property of Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens. If you are reading this at another site, please report that to us
About Susan J. Tweit
Fantastic post. I native plant nursery owner and I were talking about native plants and drought the other day. It seems that people in your part of the country need to use more and more native plants if your want plants in your garden. A lack of water is not as big a problem here in Michigan, so it is tougher to get people to want to grow native plants.
Mary Pellerito recently posted..Summer Scent
Thanks, Mary. I think that the most compelling reason for people to restore native plant communities in all or part of their yard is bigger than weather or climate or saving water, all of which are important. It’s about restoring health–our own and that of the planet that gives us life. Native plants rebuild healthy natural relationships for our landscapes and the myriad of lives that animate them. Restoring native plants is something unambiguously good we can do in a time when bad news overwhelms and paralyses us; it restores our hope and our spirits.
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..What’s Cooking: I’m playing with my food again
What a stunning and beautiful “unlawn”! It’s so amazing that something so gorgeous can thrive in an area that gets so little rain. I’ve heard that future wars will not be fought for oil, but for water. We all need to wake up and learn to conserve this precious resource. Thanks for showing us how to have beauty in the land of little water.
Carole Sevilla Brown recently posted..Starting From Scratch In the Wildlife Garden
I wish you could see it “in person,” Carole! Maybe someday…. And yes, water is a huge issue here in the West were some 60 percent of our domestic use goes onto landscaping (after we put the energy and money and chemicals into “treating” it so its safe for drinking–what a waste on so many levels!). Water here is so precious that as, the saying goes, “In the West, water flows uphill toward money.”
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..What’s Cooking: I’m playing with my food again
So good to see a landscape of the region encouraged instead tamed. The area you live in is incredibly beautiful.
Gloria recently posted..Pollinators In The Garden In March
Thank you, Gloria. My mission in life is to bring wildness home to everyone. I didn’t point it out in this posit, but my “unlawn” is on a busy corner just two blocks from the thriving historic downtown of my small town, so a lot of people see it. I figure my wildflowers open their minds as they drive by!
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..What’s Cooking: I’m playing with my food again
I just returned from the Alburquerque area which was very dry. I live in the subtropics in Miami and it has done nothing but rain the entire month of May. We had a total of almost 15 inches of rain. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip out to NM and loved all the native flowers. I have many planted in my yard in florida. I also write a blog which can be found at http://www.reenysbutterfliesbloomsbees.blogspot.com
Fifteen inches of rain just in May! Yikes, Maureen. That is a lot of rain. I teach in a program for top high school writers that takes place in Miami Beach in January, and I always enjoy seeing flowers blooming in what is winter where I am… Enjoy your winged wonders and your native flowers!
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Completing a circle: an “artifact” returns home
Susan your “unlawn” is an inspiration…my invasive weedy area has hope that the natives will eventually take hold and look lovely too…
Donna@Gardens Eye View recently posted..Gardens Eye Journal-June 2012
Donna, My late husband Richard and I did a ton of weeding before we reseeded our ugly industrial property with natives. And when I say a ton, I do mean filling our utility trailer over and over again with bags full of weed carcasses. My back remembers that work! Now I rarely have to pull more than a weed or two because the natives have rewoven a healthy community so the weeds can’t get a toehold. I hope the natives do begin re-establishing themselves on your weedy area–and soon!
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Completing a circle: an “artifact” returns home