Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. ~Thomas Edison~ Such a tiny word — poa, Greek for grass — to encompass one of the great life forces on earth. The Poaceae are the fifth most species-rich plant family with over 11,000 plants. They populate a quarter of […]
The most powerful family on earth Read More »
I was planning to write about transformation for Easter. I’ve been working on a series of essays exploring cosmologist Brian Swimme’s eleven powers of the universe, and what we can learn from these great cosmic energies. So far, I’ve done radiance, centration, and transmutation. Easter and this very welcome spring seemed like the perfect time to explore
An Easter of memory and anticipation Read More »
Laudato si — Praise be! — are the opening words of each of the verses in Saint Francis’s beautiful Canticle to the Sun, and is also the title of Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical defining the Catholic Church’s doctrines on the care of the earth. Last year I discovered that September 1 had been chosen as the annual World
Laudato si, repictured Read More »
As a landscape designer, I specialized in native plants. When I first started my business in the 1980s, the workers at a local wholesale nursery called me ‘the weed lady.’ I was always asking for plants that everyone else was pulling out. Even clients attracted by my natural landscaping approach would propose that first ‘we
Retaining paradise: gardening with native plants Read More »
When I first saw the picture of the trollius above, I was struck by how ferocious it looked, though the trollius itself didn’t inspire that thought when I took it. It was the only time I’d ever associated the word ‘ominous’ with a flower. I was reminded of it this fall, as I took pictures
Happy Halloween: slightly ominous, very orange Read More »
After my happy sojourn in Missouri, I went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for a family reunion. My brother and one of my sisters live there, and both have large families, so when we gather, that’s the sensible place to do it. Nineteen years ago, after another reunion, I’d gone to Madison to see the oldest restored
Love, grief, wildflowers Read More »
Two months before, I hadn’t even known there were prairies in Missouri. But there I was, in early August, swerving all over the place on a dirt and gravel road, on my way to one. I wasn’t swerving because the surface was slippery after the night’s rain, but because large, soot-black butterflies with luminous blue
Surprised by delight in Missouri Read More »
In the middle of the 19th century, the tallgrass prairie covered 170 million square miles. It stretched from Canada to Texas, and from the middle of Nebraska to an outpost in northern Ohio. The vast ocean of gigantic grasses was the first thing people coming west saw, as the mountains and forests of the east
Saved by stone: the tallgrass prairie of the Flint Hills Read More »
Smoky Valley Ranch was the place I didn’t go to see. I went to Oakley, Kansas to see Monument Rocks and Lake Scott State Park, both recommended by a man named Mike Haddock, who runs a wonderful Kansas wildflower website. Oakley is not a destination site, but there are some interesting things to see there,
Smoky Valley Ranch: preserving a prairie Read More »
The Pawnee National Grasslands were born out of grief. After years of drought, farmers of northeastern Colorado, already suffering through the Great Depression, watched as their soil literally blew away. Clouds of dirt rose 20,000 feet in the air and blew so far east that they eventually settled on boats crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Left
Parcels of prairie: the Pawnee National Grasslands Read More »