Rewilding My Lot

Little Bluestem is a moderately tall (5 ft) prairie grass. I defined an area for it toward the back of the garden in the spring and sowed seed there. But nothing grew! That was around the time of The Great Deluge, which disrupted my other native grass seeding project, so who knows where those seeds are now.

I do still want to have Little Bluestem here, and I have some replacement seed to try again. However, I’m also going to kick-start the project by adding some established plants as well.

When I went to Green Jay Gardens for my first fall visit, I happened to spot some Little Bluestem that was practically bursting out of its pot. It seemed very eager to be planted so I brought it home.

This is actually an excellent situation for me. Little Bluestem is a clumping grass, and by pulling apart what I bought, I can generate several separate plants from the one pot. Here’s how that went.

Here’s the starting area, marked with stones. It’s clear of weeds, but where native grasses from the areas behind and right have wandered in, I left those. (The spiky plant on the left is Lemongrass that I brought from Houston.)

I was really hoping for some rain this weekend to soften the ground, but there was none (our last rain was about three weeks ago). So the night before, I marked the six areas where I wanted to plant Little Bluestem and gave those places a good soaking.

The next morning I dug six holes. Our “soil” here is awful — compacted sand and stones — so digging is more like hacking, prying, and pulling rubble out of the ground with hands. Each hole then got a couple of handfuls of compost and a dusting of mycorrhizae (organic root stimulant).

The Little Bluestem in the pot badly wanted out! I want it to concentrate on growing new roots, so I cut off the seed heads (mostly empty now) and laid them on the ground in case they can be food for something.

Out of the pot, I broke the clump apart as gently as I could and divided it into six pieces, each with at least some green. I wasn’t concerned about making the pieces equal sizes. Each hole got a portion, and leftover detached fragments of root were put in the holes as well (I doubt they’ll grow, but they can be compost).

Then the holes were filled in, watered, and stomped down with some more compost. Here’s the final set-up with six small portions of Little Bluestem in the ground, seed head stalks laid flat, and bottom left is the Gulf Muhly that was planted yesterday.