by Debbie Ornquist
Make a Pocket Prairie 1. Test your soil.
First thing you’ll want to do is mark out where you want your pocket prairie and test your soil for moisture, pH levels and soil type. This will give you good information for choosing which species to plant.
Prairie: An area dominated by grasses and forbs with almost no trees. Tallgrass prairie once extended from Canada to Central Texas!
Pocket prairie: A small prairie. Imagine if every yard from Canada to Texas had its own pocket prairie! How many birds and monarchs could be fed? How would it impact our air and bodies of water?
2. Know your region.
Once you’ve got a soil profile, determine when is the right time to plant for your region. (Here’s a link to discover your region.) A good rule of thumb is that you want to plant forbs in the fall because some wildflower seeds require winter weather to help weaken the seed coat and break dormancy. It’s better to plant grasses in the spring to give them a full growing season to get established and produce seed.
3. Buy the right seed.
It’s still safe to buy seed mixes that contain both forbs and grasses for planting either in fall or spring, but keep in mind some of the seed sown out of their ideal season may not do so well. Not to worry, you can always make up for any lost diversity by seeding or transplanting species later on.
What you must do is make sure your seed mix is actually of native species – not species that have naturalized. It’s wise to call any seed source to make sure the seed is truly native before you buy. There are plenty of native seed suppliers but if you have difficulty locating seed, try calling your local extension office or get in touch with a native plant society.
4. Prepare your soil.
Once you’re set with seed, you’ll want to prepare your soil before planting. You can follow our instructions for both soil preparation and planting here.
“The cool thing about prairies is there’s no right or wrong,” says Asher, who explains that prairies are disturbance ecosystems that needed fire and grazing to survive. “So, you can be a bit rough with your pocket prairie; it won’t need the gentle hand that a flowerbed does. And by that I mean that at any time after you’ve started your prairie you can get away with re-tilling areas to seed for more diversity, removing invasive plants, and moving plants around.”
Pocket Prairie Water Feature A fountain is a welcome hardscape element in the yard’s design, serving as a water source to wildlife during hot, dry Austin summers. Asher created a small wetland with his by adding native freshwater fish and native wetland plants for them to feed on. Embrace Change Chances are that after the hard work that comes with preparing and planting your prairie you’ll want to relax and watch nature take its course. Although you can expect to see some plants taking root before too long, one of the biggest elements to establishing a mature prairie is time.
Different species will come in and out as your pocket prairie grows. You’ll learn which species are working where and bring in new ones. Asher says that prairies are the opposite of flowerbeds in that they constantly change over time as pioneer plants are replaced by later successional species. That change is part of their beauty.
“When Europeans first settled here, they wanted to impose order over this big, dark scary natural place that was seemingly devoid of logic, and this mentality shaped environments all over the world,” says Asher. “Now, we are at a point where we’ve done that to too much of our landscape and we are forced to relearn how ecosystems function. Prairies let us do that; they give us the chance to become an observer of natural processes and really start to learn.”
