Today's no walk report: 022319

No walk today, just because...

Wildflowers Part I

Here's what's been going on just outside the humble abode in which we live. Back in 2012 I had an idea about how to make up for a lack of heathy vegetation on the property. I thought, "wildflowers", might bring forth some beauty and color for what I hoped would amount to little effort and expense. Effort wise there were some chores. The first big task was to dig up front back and side yards with the small electric cultivator and get rid of a thick carpet of what some people around these parts like to refer to as grass, or, their lawn. I believe it might be Kikuyu grass (Pennisetum clandestinum), a mat-forming grass with coarse, creeping stems that intertwine and become inches thick. It's a mess.

The process looked something like this...

It's hard to remember exactly but that brown, grass-less section, probably represents several days work, at least a few hours a day. Back in the 1960s that entire area was thick ivy--another garden nightmare in my book and some of that still rears its ugly head.

Anyway, to shorten the story... Eventually the idea of filling in some of the dirt with wildflower seeds came to mind and that's been evolving ever since. The first round of wildflowers was in the spring of 2013, from seed put down in the fall of 2012. In 2015 we estimated (by a weight/seed count) some 4,000,000 seeds were cast. I think it was a total of 2.5 pounds. Kind of crazy. Last year, 2018, we relied entirely on the previous season's reseed and this year we threw down about 9 oz of mostly Dimorphotheca sinuata (African daisy), papaver rhoeas (common poppy or Shirley poppy) and an annual/perennial mix. This post is the first to show off how this is playing out for the current crop.

With the first rains in October 2017 the seeding started. Docken and I stood in the rain and went nuts. By January 11th, this is how things looked.

For the most part, what you see above is now over a foot tall and flowers started blooming in patches. This goes in a cycle that typically starts with the Dimorphotheca sinuata and a small white daisy called Leucanthemum vulgare (oxeye daisy). Here they are in photos taken over the past week or so, in no particular order...

The backyard is a whole other story, so stay tuned for that.