Our new pergola is officially open!

Scotty Hayward and the Yahoo Drummers played at Prairie Hill to help us celebrate the official opening of our new pergola built by Women Imagine. We ate, we drank, we sang, and we danced—it was a grand celebratory evening!  Lots of people have been enjoying this new outdoor gathering space. Come by and try it out!

A retirement adventure

Our friend Shami Morse recently retired, rented her Prairie Hill home, and set off on an adventure. She's taken a biology internship at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Des Moines. It’s a large-scale prairie reconstruction project established in 1990 to protect, restore and manage native ecosystems of tallgrass prairie, oak savanna and sedge meadow. These treasured landscapes that once covered nearly 85 percent of our state have now been reduced to less than 1 percent of the land. Saving that tiny tidbit is so important to our ecosystem and our history. Here's an excerpt from her letter to us written about a week into the internship:

It’s been fun, tiring, satisfying, educational, and everything I imagined. I’ve spent my first week learning how to drive various vehicles and how to operate the pesticide applicator. (Sadly this is still needed to control some of the invasive species). But much of the time has been spent out in the field with my fellow interns, three recent college graduates who are very knowledgeable and kind. 

July's featured plant: Blue grama grass

The photo above shows a close-up of the seed head of Blue Grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis) (Poaceae family). The green blooms hanging down will soon turn yellow. When the plant goes dormant in the fall the entire plant will turn tan. It is a perennial short-grass prairie plant and is a beautiful addition to any short native prairie planting. We have planted it in our turf along with the deep-rooted Buffalo grass. Blue Grama is a bit taller than the Buffalo grass and is also more drought tolerant. For more information, visit the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center.