INTEREST AND AWARENESS round native vegetation has been trending lately, and it makes them really feel nearly new. However after all natives are the unique vegetation of an space, and even in sure specialty corners of the nursery business, they’ve been round far longer than they’ve been making headlines.
Simply ask immediately’s visitor, Neil Diboll, who has operated Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin for 42 years, since lengthy earlier than phrases like “pollinator backyard” have been modern. He’ll share a few of his favourite species you could not know, and in addition some recommendation on what to anticipate over time managing meadow- and prairie-style plantings, in case you’re amongst these gardeners contemplating transitioning a part of your garden, as an illustration.
Neil has been president and consulting ecologist for Prairie Nursery in Westfield, Wisc., since 1982. Final yr, in collaboration with backyard designer and horticulturist Hilary Cox, he printed “The Gardener’s Information to Prairie Vegetation” (affiliate hyperlink), a complete information to utilizing prairie vegetation in gardens and bigger restorations. (Above, Culver’s root, Veronicastrum virginicum.)
Plus: Remark within the field close to the underside of the web page to enter to win a replica of the e book.
Learn alongside as you take heed to the June 3, 2024 version of my public-radio present and podcast utilizing the participant beneath. You may subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts right here).
speaking prairie vegetation, with neil diboll
Margaret Roach: I like the e book, Neil; it’s so severe, but in addition accessible. I don’t know in case you could be each issues on the similar time, however someway it’s. So congratulations on that.
Neil Diboll: Thanks.
Margaret: So we did a current “New York Occasions” backyard column collectively, however that wasn’t the primary time I met you. I met you 30-something years in the past after I was engaged on a e book known as “The Pure Habitat Backyard” with Ken Druse, and we came over you and find out about all issues prairie from you. And again then, natives, you jogged my memory after we labored on the current Occasions piece, have been extra more likely to be thought-about weeds than modern [laughter]. Sure?
Neil: Oh, sure, sure. Let’s simply say we have been a little bit forward of the curve on this. So there was some fairly arduous years making an attempt to persuade folks to make use of natives after they weren’t accustomed to understanding something about them.
Margaret: Yeah, we’ve come a great distance, but it surely feels someway to me—I suppose as a result of I get plenty of reader and listener questions—it feels to me like within the mainstream horticulture market, the analysis and improvement and advertising and marketing efforts have been actually to invent flashy new types of natives and promote, promote, promote them perhaps greater than to teach the purchasers. And I do know you assume training is among the most essential elements, and I completely agree, listening to what persons are confounded by.
Neil: Yeah, training is super-important, particularly when 40 years in the past we had a product that no person knew about, and so we needed to educate. And to ensure that folks to make use of your product correctly, to make use of these vegetation correctly, you could ensure that they perceive them and the way they work together with one another.
So gardening with native prairie vegetation, folks can create mini-ecosystems or plant communities, and that’s actually a radical idea as a result of now you’re not simply plunking in a plant like this or a plant like that, however you’re truly utilizing a local ecosystem as your mannequin for a backyard. And so reasonably than recreating nature in our personal picture, if you’ll, we’re utilizing nature’s rules to create a mannequin of nature. So reasonably than a homocentric backyard, it’s a extra of a nature-centric mannequin. And that basically helps to tell gardeners so far as use these vegetation and use them to create low-maintenance, high-quality habitat.
Margaret: And simply to that time that you simply’re making, I imply, after we long-time gardeners, even skilled, knowledgeable gardeners, we’d purchase our hostas and our astilbe and our this and that. I simply talked about some shade vegetation, however I might point out solar vegetation, too. We put them down and 30 years later, they’re primarily in the identical place that they was once [laughter]. what I imply? We knew handle them, we knew what they wanted. We knew when to chop them again. We type of knew the routine. They have been the acquainted palette. And these aren’t essentially.
And as you’re stating, we’re not simply plunking issues down, “Ooh, look, that’ll look fairly over right here, and this can look fairly over there,” we’re creating communities. And that’s a complete totally different mindset. So I get plenty of questions from people who find themselves thrown off by, nicely, how do I make this all work? It’s a little bit complicated.
Neil: And it helps to know your vegetation, and lots of gardeners know their vegetation phenomenally nicely, however they’re simply totally different vegetation. And so what we’re seeing now could be that severe gardeners are attending to know native vegetation and making use of ecological rules in how they design with them, how they handle them, and many others.
Particularly past simply the usage of the vegetation as one thing aesthetic for human beings, however reasonably as a habitat backyard, and what I name a three way partnership with nature, the place we meet nature midway. So we invite nature into our gardens. And reasonably than spraying all the pieces to maintain the bugs off, we truly invite the bugs. As a result of in my backyard or my meadows, if I don’t have holes within the leaves of my vegetation, I’m an utter failure as a gardener as a result of I’m not supporting pollinators, I’m not supporting birds. The bugs that type the inspiration of the meals chain that feed all the pieces up, they’re going to eat my vegetation, and that’s why half the explanation why these vegetation are there, not only for me, however for all of us.
Margaret: Proper. Perfectionism shouldn’t be the aim [laughter]. And a static image, as I mentioned, I’ve hostas and so they’re nonetheless in the identical place the place I put them, as I mentioned, and I might have put them there 30 years in the past. And primarily, they’re larger, however they’re nonetheless there. However with let’s say… and perhaps we must always inform the distinction between what’s a meadow versus a prairie planting as a result of that’s type of scorching now, is to make a meadow or transition some garden to meadow or to prairie. What’s the distinction out of your ecologist’s perspective?
Neil: Between meadow and prairie?
Margaret: Yeah.
Neil: Yeah. Typically within the lexicon, a meadow is considered as a extra cool-season grass, with grasses that come up early in spring, with varied wildflowers which are extra predominant within the Japanese a part of america, normally a decrease profile. And a prairie is admittedly the outline of the Midwestern tall-grass prairie, which was encountered by early French explorers within the seventeenth, 18th centuries. And so they discovered these huge meadows with these tall grasses, and the phrase they used to explain them was prairie, which after all is the French phrase for meadow. However while you have a look at the way in which the phrases, the phrases are used now, meadow normally refers to a lower-growing profile, wildflower, meadow. And you may have a brief prairie, however a brief prairie continues to be 1 to five toes tall relying upon the constituents. So it’s nonetheless usually a taller plant group and typical of the Midwest reasonably than the East.
Margaret: So I hear from individuals who transitioned an space to a meadow or a prairie, normally, once more, I’m within the East, so I hear from particularly plenty of Easterners and so they say, meadow, “I’ve a brand new meadow backyard or no matter.” “I’m managing my meadow.” And within the third yr, I don’t see my black-eyed Susans. There’s no extra black-eyed Susans. And I beloved my black-eyed Susans,” Rudbeckia hirta [above]. Some members of that group that they thought was going to remain static, keep like a postcard picture endlessly, and it’s evolving, proper? So uh-oh, succession [laughter].
Neil: Precisely, yeah. And let’s have a look at the 2 other ways you should utilize these vegetation. You may create a prairie backyard with transplants, the place you’ll be able to choose long-lived vegetation if you would like it to be extra static. And that’s why in our e book, we listed flowers expectations. We don’t have any annuals in there, however we now have a couple of biennials, after all, with a life expectancy of two years. After which short-lived perennials three to 5 years, after which mid-successional perennials 5 to 10 years, after which later successional perennials 10 to twenty, after which lastly the Methuselah vegetation that stay 20, 30, 40, 50 years and longer.
Margaret: I beloved that Neil, I beloved it. I imply, I’ve by no means seen the life expectancy listed in any e book about vegetation. And while you did that, and it was like “Baptisia, 20-plus years,” and I used to be like, proper, that factor is anchored within the floor. what I imply? That’s a keeper that’s staying round. It settles down, and it’s there.
Neil: Properly, I believe that is actually essential for gardeners, so that they know what they’re getting. As you level out, what occurred to my Rudbeckia hirta? Properly, it’s a biennial, and naturally you’re referring to a seed combine the place being a biennial, it’s simply fairly dominant in a second yr, and it’d hold on for one more couple of years, however by the fifth or sixth yr, it’s just about gone due to, as you identified, ecological succession.
And that is actually essential for folks to know ecological succession, whereby while you seed onto open floor, normally the primary yr it’s all weeds, which you didn’t plant. They’re simply dormant seeds within the soil, and also you management them by preserving all the pieces mowed again, normally to about 6 inches within the first rising season.
After which you will have biennials that present up in a second yr, just like the black-eyed Susan and weedy biennials. And oftentimes you’ll need to mow these within the second yr. After which the third yr, the extra quickly maturing perennials of the prairie flowers and grasses begin to present up. And by the fifth yr, it’s just about a prairie, if all the pieces’s going in response to plan.
After which what’s attention-grabbing is the precise range of complete variety of prairie vegetation normally peaks round yr 12 or 15. After which it begins to drop barely because the early successional and mid-successional perennials give method to these longer-lived vegetation that stay 10 to 20-plus years.
So it’s type of disappointing generally while you see a few of your favourite vegetation perhaps going by the wayside. However with disturbance… and that is actually essential, and disturbance is available in many varieties. There’s ripping the bottom up, there’s animal exercise, however the one we normally use is managed burning.
With managed burning, you’ll be able to type of set succession again and preserve what we name gap-phase succession the place you will have open soil the place a few of these different species that might be shorter-lived, can recede and proceed to keep up as a lot range as doable. So burning is admittedly an essential facet of this. After all, lots of people can’t burn or don’t need to burn. It’s truly very simple to burn in case you arrange your panorama accurately. And it’s actually plenty of enjoyable as you already know.
Margaret: There’s a complete part in your e book about it, and after I first met you, you couldn’t wait to carry me and Ken Druse to your own home the place you have been making a prairie. You had a younger prairie backyard in your entrance yard, I believe, and also you needed to point out us a managed burn. And so once more, you instruct do it within the e book.
Properly, I like that you simply mentioned that we might use a few of these vegetation as type of specimens. Lets say, “I’m going to make a mattress of those prairie vegetation, not a group.” So we might try this and management it extra, however when it’s extra like a meadow or a prairie, the succession goes to take maintain and so forth.
Neil: And while you use seeds, it’s going to be an evolutionary course of. However after all, we need to have these early-successional, mid-successional species. So we now have curiosity in yr 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, and on, but it surely type of reaches extra of a stasis after about 15 years or so. Nevertheless it’s not unhealthy. You continue to have a lot of flowers and exquisite grasses, so there’s just a few species which will fall by the wayside over an prolonged time frame.
Margaret: And also you simply mentioned grasses. And that’s an essential part as a result of simply selecting a complete lot of flowers, plenty of forbs, shouldn’t be going to do it, shouldn’t be going to carry all of it collectively and create that group, as a result of these have been vegetation which are accustomed to having partnerships with grasses.
Neil: Sure. And prairies are grasslands, meadows are grasslands, and so you actually can’t have one with out the grass, and those that have tried to plant simply wildflowers. And it may be executed, but it surely’s a little bit trickier for various causes. Primary, it’s the fibrous roots of the grasses that assist to discourage weeds, as a result of they don’t enable any open soil on the floor of the bottom. And in order that’s the place most weeds get established. There are all the time going to be weeds that may blow in and trigger issues, however you’ll enormously scale back that hazard by having enough amount of grass in your meadow or backyard. So that they’re actually type of your weeders. Like I say, make the vegetation do the give you the results you want. I don’t need to go on the market and weed. I’m going to design this backyard or design this prairie seed combine so it’s going to have enough grass in it to maintain weeds out as finest as doable.
And in addition, in case you’re going to burn a prairie, flower sticks, outdated flower sticks don’t burn. You want what we name positive gas—grass—in an effort to carry a hearth. So in case you don’t have grass in your prairie, it principally received’t burn. And you then lose that nice administration choice for preserving it very recent and new and searching good and preserving out weeds and timber and shrubs, as a result of hearth is admittedly one of the simplest ways to maintain out invaders, most invaders. And persons are scared of fireplace. Properly, truly on our web site, I’ve an article beneath sources and guides, it’s known as “Methods to Burn Your Prairie Safely,” and there’s so many tips about how to do that.
So I imply, it’s nearly not possible to lose it in case you do it proper. And one actually easy trick is simply earlier than you burn it, simply reduce all the pieces down and all of the gas is on the bottom. As a substitute of getting huge flames, it’s simply creeping alongside the bottom. And so it’s so easy. It’s very easy.
Margaret: I’m sorry that the home wren, by the way in which, outdoors my window—although I’ve closed the window, the home wren is insistent on being on this program immediately, so you’ll be able to hear him screaming.
Neil: Oh, yeah, that’s good. It’s good to have a associate on the present.
Margaret: [Laughter.] Just a little bossy creature. Yeah. So we have been speaking about making this dwelling mulch in a way by having the part of grasses with the wildflowers, the forbs, and that it makes it extra weed-resistant. The opposite query I get requested quite a bit is when weeds do come by, particularly within the early years that I don’t need, ought to I pull them out as a result of then which will open up one other area within the soil? Ought to I pull them out and attempt to do the least opening of soil doable or put one thing on it, like a chunk of cardboard or no matter? Is there any weeding recommendation in any respect for these type of communities?
Neil: Yeah, as soon as once more, you’re speaking a couple of seeded meadow, seeded prairie, proper?
Margaret: Possibly, yeah.
Neil: O.Ok. Properly, in case you have a look at it, you must have a look at it strategically, and you could know your weeds. Actually, after I first began doing this again in 1977, I used to be taking a look at plantings that somebody had executed on the college the place I went to high school, and it was a really new planting so all I discovered have been weeds. So I needed to study my weeds first, which truly was very useful.
As a result of in case you have a look at weeds, you have a look at them because the species that can trigger issues in a grassland, you will have annuals, which present up largely within the first yr and the second yr as nicely. Then you will have biennials. Now we’re speaking about herbaceous vegetation, annuals and biennials. After which you will have perennial grasses, and you’ve got perennial rhizomatous grasses and perennial non-rhizomatous grasses. Then you will have perennial broadleaf weeds, and people are additionally divided into rhizomatous and non-rhizomatous, with the rhizomatous species being the actual downside kids, these are those that creep all over. Issues like Canada thistle and discipline bindweed and horse nettle. These are actual, actual issues, and also you need to get them out as quickly as you presumably can. Crown vetch, oh, what a horrible plant.
Margaret: Now we have mugwort, and I do know your recommendation for mugwort.
Neil: Oh, mugwort is like, oh, good luck with that.
Margaret: Relocate. Relocate [laughter].
Neil: Yeah, relocate. Recalibrate, sure. It’s so troublesome after you have a longtime inhabitants of it.
Or what you are able to do is you’ll be able to kill all of it off. After which right here’s a little bit trick. When you have a long-term downside with the seed financial institution, you’ll be able to kill all the pieces off with whichever technique you need to use, whether or not it’s smothering or repeated tilling or herbicide or no matter, till there’s completely none of that perennial weed left and none across the edges the place it might probably creep in. After which you’ll be able to put 3 inches of recent, clear, topsoil over that which is able to bury the weed seed financial institution, after which you’ll be able to seed or plant your vegetation into that recent soil, assuming that it doesn’t have every other problematic weeds. So this works on a small space, it’s not going to work on a bigger space.
However when you will have an issue web site with a longterm historical past of actually nasty, thuggish weeds, that is the way you overcome them, by fully eliminating the weeds after which placing 3 inches of excellent, clear topsoil over that, that won’t have weed seeds. However in case you have a look at this, you could know who you’re up towards. So so far as pulling weeds within the first yr of a seeded prairie, you by no means pull weeds, as a result of while you pull the weeds, you undoubtedly, invariably carry up clumps of soil and there go your prairie seedlings with it. And also you may as nicely go in there and spray it with Roundup. That’s why we preserve all the pieces mowed to six inches, as a result of few, if any of these prairie seedlings are going to develop greater than 6 inches within the first yr.
Within the second yr, if we now have downside weeds with biennials like burdock, candy clovers, wild parsnip, plenty of these guys can actually be an issue. So proper after they end blooming, we reduce them right down to 12 inches, which then stops the seed formation course of.
Margaret: Proper, O.Ok.
Neil: And kills the vegetation aside from Queen Anne’s lace, which is an indeterminate bloomer and would require fixed chopping again of the flowers. Then within the third yr…
Margaret: I used to be going to say strategic relying on what plant you’re up towards, you will have a technique. Yeah.
Neil: Precisely. And that data is within the e book, “The Gardener’s Information to Prairie Vegetation.” It’s additionally on our web site. So there’s a lot of sources right here the place folks can get to know these vegetation and what to do. However once more, you must know who you’re up towards and know strategically management them.
Margaret: Proper, perceive its life historical past and so forth. Yeah.
Neil: Yeah, precisely.
Margaret: So after we did the Occasions story, we talked about how although everybody just about coast to coast is aware of purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, which by the way isn’t native coast to coast, however I even see it bought in catalogs promoting in California, for goodness sake. However there’s so many all over the place it appears [laughter]. However there’s so many nice prairie natives for the Japanese half or two-thirds of the nation, which is I suppose roughly talking, plenty of them are your specialties, that individuals don’t know but. And I believed it might be enjoyable to only take a couple of minutes to name out so we don’t run out of time. Take a couple of minutes to name out some that you simply want you knew higher, as a result of it’s not simply purple coneflower and Rudbeckia, proper? [Above, hybrid coneflowers combining genetics of Echinacea purpurea and E. pallida.]
Neil: Proper. And persons are oriented towards the showy flowers. And let’s not overlook that the English have been planting purple coneflower within the nineteenth century, after we have been plowing up the prairies. In order that plant’s been in style for a very long time, simply not right here. However let’s have a look at another vegetation that maybe are a little bit extra muted or are good companions for among the showier vegetation.
And I actually like plenty of the white-flowered vegetation, and white-flowered vegetation additionally notably good for bees and parasitoid wasps, which assist to manage pests in your backyard. One among my favorites is Culver’s root, Veronicastrum virginicum [top of page]. It’s a stately, elegant plant. It’s about 5 toes tall. It has lovely whorled leaves up the stem and these pure white spires of flowers, completely beautiful plant, and it’ll develop in clay. It’ll develop in moist soil. It doesn’t like dry soil. It’ll develop in full solar, and it’ll develop partly shade. So it’s a reasonably versatile plant, so long as you give it backyard soil or perhaps a barely damp soil.
One other nice plant is the rattlesnake grasp, Eryngium yuccifolium [below], attractive foliage, excellent flowers, which is able to bloom for a reasonably prolonged time frame. Only a actually attention-grabbing, odd-looking plant, but it surely has actual character, and it blooms similtaneously prairie blazingstar, Liatris pycnostachya. And you’ve got this lavender-white, fantastic pastel mixture.
That is the place the whites are so fantastic, and it’s attention-grabbing. Individuals consider prairies, oh, it’s all filled with yellow flowers, however truly there’s a lot of totally different colours. White is the second most typical colour of prairie flowers.
Margaret: I didn’t know that.
Neil: Yeah, it’s superb. And so rattlesnake grasp is also pollinated nearly completely by wasps, together with parasitic wasps. And I had a consumer who had horrible issues with tomato hornworm in his vegetable backyard. He planted a 1,000-square-foot prairie from us with a quarter-pound of prairie combine. And after the rattlesnake grasp began blooming, he mentioned, “I had no extra issues with tomato hornworms.”
And there’s a parasitic wasp that assaults the tomato hornworm by laying eggs on its again, which then burrow into the caterpillar, the caterpillar stage, and principally eats it from the within out and emerges like “Alien.” So the place do you assume they obtained that concept for the film? From nature. So he says, “My prairie is my pesticide.” And so plenty of natural gardeners will use these vegetation to draw parasitic wasps to maintain, hopefully, in lots of circumstances, to maintain their pests down.
Margaret: And everyone knows… That’s one instance, and never simply with parasitic wasps, however the extra range, the extra layers of the meals chain are being supported, the extra assist there may be at each stage for any risk.
Neil: Oh, yeah. So true.
Margaret: Yeah. Meals and interventions each can be found.
Neil: So in case you plant a prairie combine with 20, 25, 30 species, you promote them, get 100%. Mom nature’s fairly tough. However I imply, in case you get 70, 80 p.c of that and also you get a large range of flowers, you’re not simply feeding bugs, you’re additionally feeding birds as a result of they eat the bugs, and plenty of butterflies come. And naturally the bees, the wasps and everyone.
And persons are so frightened of wasps, however most wasps, they don’t trouble you. The one wasps you actually have to fret about are yellow jackets. These are the one ones that can assault you if you’re not bothering them. Hornets received’t trouble you. Mud daubers received’t trouble you, cicada killers received’t trouble you until you trouble them. However the yellow jacket, they’d simply as quickly sting as have a look at you. However they often don’t come to the prairie as a result of they eat doughnuts and hamburgers and soda cans.
Margaret: They go to the mall [laughter].
Neil: They go to the picnic.
Margaret: They go to the mall.
Neil: That’s the place they go, they’re not coming to your prairie. So fee, one other sensible choice are the mountain mints, genus Pycnanthemum. These are simply pollinator havens, and we couldn’t give these away 20 years in the past. Instantly, they’re tremendous in style due to the curiosity in pollinators. And so Pycnanthemum is within the mint household, and it’s superb at what number of totally different species it attracts.
Margaret: And there’s a number of totally different mountain mints, I believe. I don’t know what number of you carry.
Neil: There’s tons. Pycnanthemum virginianum, Pycnanthemum tenuifolium, Pycnanthemum muticum [above]. All of those are actually good decisions for attracting pollinators, and so they’re fairly adaptable species.
Margaret: One of many issues that individuals ask me about quite a bit, and I believe we talked about perhaps one or two decisions within the Occasions story, folks need issues which are low to the bottom, like groundcover-ish issues, as a result of that was what, after all, as gardeners, we have been all hooked on groundcovers, and there’s not as many decisions perhaps, however there are some. I believe Antennaria, pussytoes is that one [below]?
Neil: That’s an awesome plant for a dry, sandy soil. When you have a patio with sand in between the stones, it’ll develop in there. It stays actually low. It likes at the very least a half a day of solar, but it surely stays very low. It has lovely silvery leaves.
And it truly is dioecious: It has separate female and male vegetation. It’s arduous to inform the distinction until you rise up shut and private. Nevertheless it sends up these little flower stalks about 4 inches tall and these lovely whitish-green leaves, and so they particularly have these little white hairs to replicate solar as a result of they develop in very dry environments, the place it’s simple to get overheated.
So it’ll develop in super-, super-difficult websites like sandy hillsides and locations like that, or alongside sidewalks, but it surely doesn’t like clay. So that you need to have a extremely good-draining soil. However when you will have these spots which are actual scorching spots, like up towards the south facet of a home that get simply burned up, it is a nice low-growing plant. And there’s another actually fantastic dry-tolerant prairie vegetation that attain taller heights as nicely for these sorts of troublesome conditions.
Margaret: The final one I need to ask you about is there’s a petunia, but it surely’s not a petunia. It’s a Ruellia, I believe.
Neil: Yeah.
Margaret: Yeah. Is it a prairie petunia? Is that what it’s known as? What’s its widespread identify?
Neil: Prairie petunia, wild petunia, Ruellia humilis [above].
Margaret: Wild petunia, O.Ok.
Neil: Humilis: low-growing, humble, low-growing. It is a actually lovely plant with only a violet flower. And it has a single faucet root, after which it simply spreads out. It sends out these branches alongside the floor of the soil. It doesn’t get greater than a pair toes tall, so it’s one other actually good groundcover-ish plant. It doesn’t creep and type a floor cowl just like the pussytoes, the place it truly creeps by rhizomes or the wild strawberry [Fragaria virginiana] is one other good one, which creeps by rhizomes and can develop in very troublesome soils, too, very dry soils. And the Ruellia can also be tolerant of scorching, dry situations. So these are actually good decisions if you would like some low-growing vegetation, particularly in robust, scorching conditions.
Margaret: Properly, I’ll embrace some hyperlinks to among the academic stuff in your web site, as a result of as you mentioned in the beginning, training’s been a extremely essential a part of working with a product that individuals didn’t actually, and nonetheless don’t totally, learn about, and are simply studying about. I all the time study quite a bit from you, Neil, even after I’m not at your own home and also you’re not setting your entrance garden on hearth to terrify me [laughter].
Neil: Properly, it’s been some time. Margaret. Subsequent spring it’s best to come, and we’ll do an anniversary prairie hearth.
Margaret: O.Ok. Extra trauma [laughter]. Properly, thanks a lot. Thanks for making time immediately.
Neil: It’s my pleasure, Margaret.
Margaret: Pull some extra invasives, I’m going to go do the identical. O.Ok.
Neil: All proper. It’s been fantastic. Thanks a lot.
(All photographs from Prairie Nursery, used with permission.)
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