Saturday July 25, McMahon Woods & Fen
Back to McMahon for another round of white sweet clover, this time sans the storm clouds that interrupted us two weeks ago. The sun shone bright on the prairie and the pollinators were abundant, as was the target plant.
We encountered a distressingly large number of smaller plants, which I doubt were detectable two weeks earlier. That's one curse of sweet clover; it grows for an extended period (flowers from July-September), so one assault is seldom sufficient. Yes, the repeated efforts seem to give a reduction in the population, but it does take that methodical work to get there.
Good to see John Marlin and Jim Tebo for the first time since March, to have Audra back, to have nearly a dozen volunteers come together on a warm July morning. Much appreciated!
The payoff is being surrounded by all these lovely native plants. Joe Pye weed and the sunflowers are blooming, and the prairie blazing stars are also kicking in. This purple beauty is yet another of my favorites, the plant that, according to Illinois Wildflowers, "resembles a fairy wand." How can one go wrong with that?
Back to McMahon for another round of white sweet clover, this time sans the storm clouds that interrupted us two weeks ago. The sun shone bright on the prairie and the pollinators were abundant, as was the target plant.
We encountered a distressingly large number of smaller plants, which I doubt were detectable two weeks earlier. That's one curse of sweet clover; it grows for an extended period (flowers from July-September), so one assault is seldom sufficient. Yes, the repeated efforts seem to give a reduction in the population, but it does take that methodical work to get there.
Good to see John Marlin and Jim Tebo for the first time since March, to have Audra back, to have nearly a dozen volunteers come together on a warm July morning. Much appreciated!
The payoff is being surrounded by all these lovely native plants. Joe Pye weed and the sunflowers are blooming, and the prairie blazing stars are also kicking in. This purple beauty is yet another of my favorites, the plant that, according to Illinois Wildflowers, "resembles a fairy wand." How can one go wrong with that?
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