Rewilding My Lot

Once the majority of Bluebonnets and Firewheels had finished blooming in my native wildflower meadow, they were cut down to the ground and the stems moved to the back garden to dry.

A few days later it was shredding time. By then I had accumulated quite a lot of material, due to cutting down most of the Firewheels in the back as well.

Three hours of hot and dirty work transformed half of the above pile into several buckets of what I would call “light mulch” and most of that was given back to the meadow, primarily where the soil is bare. There are still flowers in the meadow, so it’s not time to mow the whole area yet.

This is part of my process to improve soil quality. If it is practical, I return non-weedy biomass back to the ground in the form of mulch or compost. The roots from the meadow’s annual plants that have finished will remain in the ground to decay as well. Thus, this year’s meadow is helping to prepare for next year’s meadow.

After I had retreated indoors to shower and cool off, I happened to look out through the window and saw an array of doves enjoying sunflower seeds that had been scattered on the ground during shredding. In the photo below there are at least three, including a Mourning Dove on the left and a White-Winged Dove on the right.