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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 trade, they’ve been round far longer than they’ve been making headlines.
Simply ask right this moment’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 it’s possible you’ll 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 revealed “The Gardener’s Information to Prairie Crops” (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 hearken to the June 3, 2024 version of my public-radio present and podcast utilizing the participant beneath. You possibly can 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 really like the e book, Neil; it’s so severe, but in addition accessible. I don’t know if you happen to could be each issues on the similar time, however in some way it’s. So congratulations on that.
Neil Diboll: Thanks.
Margaret: So we did a latest “New York Instances” 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 referred to 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 latest Instances 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 just a little forward of the curve on this. So there was some fairly arduous years attempting to persuade individuals to make use of natives once they weren’t accustomed to figuring out something about them.
Margaret: Yeah, we’ve come a good distance, however it feels in some way to me—I suppose as a result of I get a whole lot 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 suppose training is likely one of the most necessary components, and I completely agree, listening to what individuals 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 individuals to make use of your product correctly, to make use of these vegetation correctly, it’s essential be certain that they perceive them and the way they work together with one another.
So gardening with native prairie vegetation, individuals 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 relatively than recreating nature in our personal picture, if you’ll, we’re utilizing nature’s rules to create a mannequin of nature. So relatively than a homocentric backyard, it’s a extra of a nature-centric mannequin. And that actually helps to tell gardeners so far as methods to use these vegetation and methods to 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, professional 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 [laughter]. You realize what I imply? We knew methods to handle them, we knew what they wanted. We knew when to chop them again. We sort of knew the routine. They have been the acquainted palette. And these are usually not essentially.
And as you’re mentioning, 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 an entire completely different mindset. So I get a whole lot of questions from people who find themselves thrown off by, properly, how do I make this all work? It’s just a little complicated.
Neil: And it helps to know your vegetation, and lots of gardeners know their vegetation phenomenally properly, however they’re simply completely different vegetation. And so what we’re seeing now’s 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 relatively 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 relatively than spraying every thing 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 every thing 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 is just not the objective [laughter]. And a static image, as I mentioned, I’ve hostas they usually’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 kind of sizzling now, is to make a meadow or transition some garden to meadow or to prairie. What’s the distinction out of your ecologist’s standpoint?
Neil: Between meadow and prairie?
Margaret: Yeah.
Neil: Yeah. Usually 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 can be extra predominant within the Japanese a part of the US, often a decrease profile. And a prairie is absolutely the outline of the Midwestern tall-grass prairie, which was encountered by early French explorers within the seventeenth, 18th centuries. They usually 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 once you have a look at the best way the phrases, the phrases are used now, meadow often refers to a lower-growing profile, wildflower, meadow. And you may have a brief prairie, however a brief prairie remains to be 1 to five ft tall relying upon the constituents. So it’s nonetheless usually a taller plant group and typical of the Midwest relatively than the East.
Margaret: So I hear from individuals who transitioned an space to a meadow or a prairie, often, once more, I’m within the East, so I hear from particularly a whole lot of Easterners they usually 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 cherished 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 possibly can create a prairie backyard with transplants, the place you’ll be able to choose long-lived vegetation if you’d like it to be extra static. And that’s why in our e book, we listed vegetation expectations. We don’t have any annuals in there, however we’ve got just a few 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 dwell 20, 30, 40, 50 years and longer.
Margaret: I cherished that Neil, I cherished it. I imply, I’ve by no means seen the life expectancy listed in any e book about vegetation. And once 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. You realize what I imply? That’s a keeper that’s staying round. It settles down, and it’s there.
Neil: Nicely, I feel that is actually necessary for gardeners, in order that they know what they’re getting. As you level out, what occurred to my Rudbeckia hirta? Nicely, 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 cling 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 necessary for individuals to know ecological succession, whereby once you seed onto open floor, often 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 holding every thing mowed again, often 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 should 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 every thing’s going in line with plan.
After which what’s attention-grabbing is the precise variety of whole variety of prairie vegetation often peaks round yr 12 or 15. After which it begins to drop barely because the early successional and mid-successional perennials give approach to these longer-lived vegetation that dwell 10 to 20-plus years.
So it’s sort of disappointing generally once you see a few of your favourite vegetation perhaps going by the wayside. However with disturbance… and that is actually necessary, and disturbance is available in many types. There’s ripping the bottom up, there’s animal exercise, however the one we often use is managed burning.
With managed burning, you’ll be able to sort 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 may be shorter-lived, can recede and proceed to take care of as a lot variety as doable. So burning is absolutely an necessary facet of this. After all, lots of people can’t burn or don’t wish to burn. It’s truly very straightforward to burn if you happen to arrange your panorama accurately. And it’s actually a whole lot of enjoyable as .
Margaret: There’s an entire 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 house the place you have been making a prairie. You had a younger prairie backyard in your entrance yard, I feel, and also you needed to indicate us a managed burn. And so once more, you instruct methods to do it within the e book.
Nicely, I really like that you simply mentioned that we might use a few of these vegetation as kind of specimens. Let’s imagine, “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 once you use seeds, it’s going to be an evolutionary course of. However after all, we wish to have these early-successional, mid-successional species. So we’ve got curiosity in yr 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, and on, however it sort of reaches extra of a stasis after about 15 years or so. However it’s not unhealthy. You continue to have numerous flowers and delightful grasses, so there’s just a few species that will fall by the wayside over an prolonged time frame.
Margaret: And also you simply mentioned grasses. And that’s an necessary element as a result of simply selecting an entire lot of flowers, a whole lot of forbs, is just not going to do it, is just not going to carry all of it collectively and create that group, as a result of these have been vegetation which can be 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 people who have tried to plant simply wildflowers. And it may be finished, however it’s just a little 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 at all times going to be weeds that may blow in and trigger issues, however you’ll enormously cut back that hazard by having adequate amount of grass in your meadow or backyard. So that they’re actually sort of your weeders. Like I say, make the vegetation do the give you the results you want. I don’t wish 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 adequate grass in it to maintain weeds out as finest as doable.
And in addition, if you happen to’re going to burn a prairie, flower sticks, previous flower sticks don’t burn. You want what we name advantageous gasoline—grass—to be able to carry a fireplace. So if you happen to don’t have grass in your prairie, it principally received’t burn. And then you definitely lose that nice administration choice for holding it very recent and new and looking out good and holding out weeds and bushes and shrubs, as a result of hearth is absolutely one of the simplest ways to maintain out invaders, most invaders. And individuals are scared of fireplace. Nicely, truly on our web site, I’ve an article underneath sources and guides, it’s referred to as “How one can 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 if you happen to do it proper. And one actually easy trick is simply earlier than you burn it, simply reduce every thing down and all of the gasoline is on the bottom. As an alternative of getting large 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 best way, exterior my window—although I’ve closed the window, the home wren is insistent on being on this program right this moment, 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.] Somewhat bossy creature. Yeah. So we have been speaking about making this dwelling mulch in a way by having the element 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 via, particularly within the early years that I don’t need, ought to I pull them out as a result of then that will open up one other house 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 bit of cardboard or no matter? Is there any weeding recommendation in any respect for these sort of communities?
Neil: Yeah, as soon as once more, you’re speaking a few seeded meadow, seeded prairie, proper?
Margaret: Possibly, yeah.
Neil: O.Okay. Nicely, if you happen to have a look at it, you need to have a look at it strategically, and it’s essential know your weeds. Actually, after I first began doing this again in 1977, I used to be plantings that somebody had finished 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 be taught my weeds first, which truly was very helpful.
As a result of if you happen to 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 principally within the first yr and the second yr as properly. 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 true downside youngsters, these are those that creep everywhere. Issues like Canada thistle and subject bindweed and horse nettle. These are actual, actual issues, and also you wish to get them out as quickly as you probably 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 just a little trick. In case you have a long-term downside with the seed financial institution, you’ll be able to kill every thing off with whichever technique you wish 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 could actually creep in. After which you’ll be able to put 3 inches of recent, clear, topsoil over that which can 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 another 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 website 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 fine, clear topsoil over that, that won’t have weed seeds. However if you happen to have a look at this, it’s essential know who you’re up in opposition to. So so far as pulling weeds within the first yr of a seeded prairie, you by no means pull weeds, as a result of once 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 properly go in there and spray it with Roundup. That’s why we preserve every thing 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’ve got downside weeds with biennials like burdock, candy clovers, wild parsnip, a whole lot of these guys can actually be an issue. So proper after they end blooming, we reduce them all the way down to 12 inches, which then stops the seed formation course of.
Margaret: Proper, O.Okay.
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 in opposition to, you will have a technique. Yeah.
Neil: Precisely. And that info is within the e book, “The Gardener’s Information to Prairie Crops.” It’s additionally on our web site. So there’s numerous sources right here the place individuals can get to know these vegetation and what to do. However once more, you need to know who you’re up in opposition to and know methods to strategically management them.
Margaret: Proper, perceive its life historical past and so forth. Yeah.
Neil: Yeah, precisely.
Margaret: So after we did the Instances 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 in all places 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, a whole lot 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 individuals are oriented towards the showy flowers. And let’s not neglect 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 just a little extra muted or are good companions for among the showier vegetation.
And I actually like a whole lot of the white-flowered vegetation, and white-flowered vegetation additionally notably good for bees and parasitoid wasps, which assist to regulate pests in your backyard. Considered one of my favorites is Culver’s root, Veronicastrum virginicum [top of page]. It’s a stately, elegant plant. It’s about 5 ft tall. It has stunning whorled leaves up the stem and these pure white spires of flowers, completely pretty plant, and it’ll develop in clay. It should develop in moist soil. It doesn’t like dry soil. It should 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], beautiful foliage, excellent flowers, which can bloom for a reasonably prolonged time frame. Only a actually attention-grabbing, odd-looking plant, however it 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. Folks consider prairies, oh, it’s all filled with yellow flowers, however truly there’s numerous completely different colours. White is the second commonest shade of prairie flowers.
Margaret: I didn’t know that.
Neil: Yeah, it’s wonderful. And so rattlesnake grasp is also pollinated nearly completely by wasps, together with parasitic wasps. And I had a shopper 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 suppose they acquired that concept for the film? From nature. So he says, “My prairie is my pesticide.” And so a whole lot of natural gardeners will use these vegetation to draw parasitic wasps to maintain, hopefully, in lots of instances, to maintain their pests down.
Margaret: And everyone knows… That’s one instance, and never simply with parasitic wasps, however the extra variety, the extra layers of the meals chain are being supported, the extra assist there may be at each stage for any chance.
Neil: Oh, yeah. So true.
Margaret: Yeah. Meals and interventions each can be found.
Neil: So if you happen to plant a prairie combine with 20, 25, 30 species, you promote them, get 100%. Mom nature’s fairly tough. However I imply, if you happen to get 70, 80 p.c of that and also you get a large variety 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 individuals are so terrified 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 in case you are not bothering them. Hornets received’t trouble you. Mud daubers received’t trouble you, cicada killers received’t trouble you except 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 good selection 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 wonderful at what number of completely different species it attracts.
Margaret: And there’s a number of completely different mountain mints, I feel. I don’t know what number of you carry.
Neil: There’s heaps. Pycnanthemum virginianum, Pycnanthemum tenuifolium, Pycnanthemum muticum [above]. All of those are actually good decisions for attracting pollinators, they usually’re fairly adaptable species.
Margaret: One of many issues that individuals ask me about quite a bit, and I feel we talked about perhaps one or two decisions within the Instances story, individuals need issues which can be 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 feel Antennaria, pussytoes is that one [below]?
Neil: That’s an excellent plant for a dry, sandy soil. In case you have a patio with sand in between the stones, it’ll develop in there. It stays actually low. It likes not less than a half a day of solar, however it stays very low. It has stunning silvery leaves.
And it truly is dioecious: It has separate female and male vegetation. It’s arduous to inform the distinction except you stand up shut and private. However it sends up these little flower stalks about 4 inches tall and these stunning whitish-green leaves, they usually particularly have these little white hairs to replicate solar as a result of they develop in very dry environments, the place it’s straightforward to get overheated.
So it’ll develop in super-, super-difficult websites like sandy hillsides and locations like that, or alongside sidewalks, however it doesn’t like clay. So that you wish to have a extremely good-draining soil. However when you will have these spots which can be actual sizzling spots, like up in opposition to the south aspect 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 properly for these sorts of troublesome conditions.
Margaret: The final one I wish to ask you about is there’s a petunia, however it’s not a petunia. It’s a Ruellia, I feel.
Neil: Yeah.
Margaret: Yeah. Is it a prairie petunia? Is that what it’s referred to as? What’s its widespread title?
Neil: Prairie petunia, wild petunia, Ruellia humilis [above].
Margaret: Wild petunia, O.Okay.
Neil: Humilis: low-growing, humble, low-growing. It is a actually stunning 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 ft 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 sizzling, dry circumstances. So these are actually good decisions if you’d like some low-growing vegetation, particularly in robust, sizzling conditions.
Margaret: Nicely, I’ll embody some hyperlinks to a few of the tutorial stuff in your web site, as a result of as you mentioned in the beginning, training’s been a extremely necessary 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 at all times be taught 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: Nicely, it’s been some time. Margaret. Subsequent spring it is best to come, and we’ll do an anniversary prairie hearth.
Margaret: O.Okay. Extra trauma [laughter]. Nicely, thanks a lot. Thanks for making time right this moment.
Neil: It’s my pleasure, Margaret.
Margaret: Pull some extra invasives, I’m going to go do the identical. O.Okay.
Neil: All proper. It’s been fantastic. Thanks a lot.
(All pictures from Prairie Nursery, used with permission.)
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MY WEEKLY public-radio present, rated a “top-5 backyard podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper within the UK, started its fifteenth yr in March 2024. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station within the nation. Hear domestically within the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Japanese, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the June 3, 2024 present utilizing the participant close to the highest of this transcript. You possibly can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts right here).
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