Sun Over The Glade

It's been too long since I visited the cedar glade... well over a year....The weather was perfect. Blue sky, fluffy clouds and temperatures that never went above 70 degrees. Unusual weather for mid-July and especially unusual weather for a glade, where the ambient temperatures can soar 15 degrees or more above the day's temperature.


For those of you who might be new here and don't know a glade~~ The Cedar Glades of the Central Basin of Tennessee represent an ecosystem unique in the world~an extremely fragile habitat.

Flat land covered with exposed and broken limestone and grassy areas with a thin layer of soil form open areas~~glades. It's very wet in wet weather and very dry in dry weather! The only large trees that have a chance of gaining a foothold here are Eastern Red Cedars, Junipers virginiana and they are mostly confined to the edges... forested areas that often surround the glades. ERCs are a taprooted tree, thus are able to find cracks and fissures in the limestone to gain a toe hold. (2bNTheWild.com)In those wooded areas growing in the deeper soils are early succession tree species and later the oaks and shagbark hickories arrive creating Red Cedar/Oak/History forests. The areas where the glades are found are karst, riddled with caves, so except in very wet weather the streams mostly run underground leaving the surface parched much of the year.

The glades are the home to many unique and sometimes very rare species of plants that have adapted to the harsh conditions. Plants that are found growing naturally in only a few places.

Like our Tennessee Coneflowers (Echinacea tennesseensis)! Which happily grow in the severe gravelly glade conditions. If you visit during the winter~~these gravel paths are often covered in standing water (winter photos here).

TCF loves the sun...

coneflowers growing in poor soils over exposed limestone gravel

and like sunflowers turns its face toward the it all day long in a

delightful Sun Salutation.

Nature is ever amazing, don't you think!

You can grow Tennessee Coneflower~~most garden centers sell Rocky Top, a cultivar of the native coneflower. Just be prepared to provide it with similar conditions: full sun and a leaner soil. Planting it in gravelly limestone soil will help. Don't worry, TCF has a taproot and will find its way to the soil below.

Unlike other echinaceas that make do with partially sunny conditions...this coneflower needs full sun!
I mean all day sunshine or you will get Downward Facing Coneflower (photos)

To me the cedar glade is a place of stark beauty.

An acquired taste you might say.

Historically they have been unappreciated and used as quarries, parking lots and

dump sites.

The flowers seen there are familiar

like the Rudbeckia triloba and the unfamiliar!

Like this cutie pie Sabatia angularis or Rose Pink.

A biennial beauty that I have missed on my other visits.

It prefers rich soils in open woods, clearings, fields and prairies.

What is it about the glades, with its stark scenery, extreme conditions and unusual plants that so attracts me?

What do you think;)

I hope you all had a delicious weekend and are refreshed and ready to face the week ahead!
Gail

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.” Ralph Waldo Emerson