Not The Climate For Xeric

Agastache  rupestris  has survived for several years in a container

Xeric is an iffy prospect in the Central Basin in Middle Tennessee.   Our summers  might be dryer and hotter, but, our winters haven't changed. They are wet, wet, wet! That's typically when we get most of our rainfall.

'Grey Owl' Juniperus and Cotinus 'Grace' prefer dry roots

On average more then 20 inches fall from November to April; that's more then most xeric plants can handle.  It's the main reason for plant loss.  Wet, clay soil over limestone   drowns plants each winter. 

and these are the pieces of limestone I can dig out!

 On the whole, I  no longer buy plants hailed as xeric for this garden.  But, I do have perennials and shrubs that require dry roots during the winter.  Juniperus virginiana "Grey Owl'  likes it on the dry side, so, the soil is raised and  amended with a  shale product that  promotes  drainage.  Some plants that need  sharp drainage might spend their life in a large container~like  Agastache rupestris.  All the rest get planted in the garden and get a good mulching each year with leaf mold. 

Autumn mix of Solidago flexiculis, Amsonia hubrecktii, native ex-asters and Rudbeckia fulgida

If you take a walk around Clay and Limestone you'll see lots of familiar fall faces. That's because  many of our natives are  also natives of the Eastern and Southeastern USA.   But, we have a few special ones that are only native to the cedar glades and if I can meet their requirements I like to give them a try. 

There might be a few friendly exotics and agastaches from the Southwest, but,  this garden is a  Central Basin garden  through and through.  In fact, if you were to visit  a nearby woodland you would see  almost all the same plants in bloom.  Solidagos, Symphyotrichums, Verbesinas, Conoclinium coelestinum, Eupatorium,  Panicums, Little Bluestems and even Chasmanthium latifolium are all  Central Basin natives that thrive on my nearly neutral, shallow clay soil. 

 Goregeous aren't they!

 They're the payoff for our long,  long hot summers.

xxoogail

I am a day late for Bloom Day but, offer up this humble post and the blooming wildflowers for your enjoyment.  Please pop over to May Dreams Gardens, where our delightful hostess has links to more Bloom Day posts then you can imagine.

Happy Independence Day!

Flowers bursting in the air

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, 

not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers 

who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle,

but, with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees,  

the potato salad gets iffy,

and the flies die from happiness. 

You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. 

Erma Bombeck

Wishing you all a day surrounded with loved one and  filled with celebration.
xxoogail

This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011.This work protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.

Sun Salutation at Couchville Cedar Glade

Couchville Cedar Glade is special. If you get a chance to visit a glade...go. There is nothing quite like its stark beauty.

Here's what Thomas Hemmerly, author of my favorite book, Wildflowers of the Central South has to say:

"The cedar glade micro-environment is a harsh, imposing one. Summers are hot and dry, and the thin, exposed soil dries out soon after rains. Winters are cold and wet; rains are more frequent, and evaporation rates much slower. Plants and other organisms must have life cycles synchronized with these changing conditions. Once occupying approximately 5 percent of the Central Basin, cedar glades have been considerably reduced in extent by man's activities. As a result, some of the plants indigenous to the glades are in peril."

Now onto the the trail....




April 2008

June 2008...It's greener and the shrubs are fuller... all the late winter/early spring annuals have bloomed and gone to seed. It's getting dryer in the glade. July and August will bring serious heat and drought.

But, I was heading to the glade to see Tennessee Coneflower in bloom. Tennessee Coneflower/Echinacea tennesseensis is endemic to cedar glades. It's found naturally growing and thriving in only five places all within 14 miles of Nashville. I have been looking forward to this since last summer!

I knew what to expect, but I wasn't prepared for the magnitude...



of this...


Fields of Tennessee Coneflower. Did I say fields? This is a colony of coneflowers. This is what Couchville Cedar Glade is about...it's the largest colony of coneflowers growing in its native habitat. Now that the Coneflower is federally protected, we will get to see these fields of flowers for a very long time.

But that's not all! Look closely! (click to enlarge). Just look and see if you notice what I noticed? Do you see it?

Each and every one of the coneflowers is facing in the same direction...eastward, toward the sun.

A perfect Sun Salutation that will be continued all day long...They will keep their lovely faces turned toward the sun as it moves through the sky!


Other flowers are known to follow the sun, the sunflower, for instance, but it's rare that we get to see fields of them staring adoringly at the sun. Nor are they an endangered species and grow under such harsh conditions.


In case you haven't seen enough

Aren't they lovely?
This isn't one big field. It's several fields all connected by small woodlands of Juniperus virginiana, Hypericum and Aromatic Sumac. The soils are deeper there, maybe 8 to 12 inches. The soils in the fields are much shallower...2 to 8 inches.

Coneflower can't be stopped by shallow soil..it has a tap root that reaches down to find cracks in the underlying limestone bedrock. In fact, too rich a soil makes the coneflower stems weak.

There is more to the glade then coneflowers!

There is this odd spongy growth.

and decaying matter is home to mushroom and other fungi.

There is the every present and incredibly beautiful...limestone.

Wildflowers like Butterfly Weed and Ratibida (pinnate prairie coneflower).


We also saw deer....a first!



and more coneflower.

You can see that the coneflower is growing in extremely rocky and shallow soil. Seeds are dispersed and fall to the ground. As it grows, it sends it taproot down into the shallow soil until it finds a crack in the limestone. The taproot can reach the water and soil to support its life during the hot dry months of June and July. A truly amazing plant.

Thank you for joining me on my tour of the glade...I hope you enjoyed the coneflowers as much as I did? It's a special place, beautiful in a unique way. If you want to know more or if you plan to be in Tennessee ...go here for a list of glades open to the public. I know you'll love them, too.

This post is copyrighted and cannot be used without the express permission of Clay and Limestone. Unauthorized use will result in legal action.

Namaste.

Gail

May our heart's garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The Stark Beauty of the Cedar Glade in Late Winter

Upturned faces looking toward the sun*


Last fall when we began to add more cedar glade plants to our landscape, Sarah (garden coach) suggested I visit a local glade (Couchville Cedar Glade). She described a field of Tennessee Coneflowers with their 'upturned faces looking towards the sun'. It was a charming description and I promised her and myself to get out there as soon as possible.


We didn't make it to the glade until later in the season and by then the coneflowers weren't in full bloom. Nashville was at the tail end of a serious drought and it was baking hot....probably not much different than is normal for a glade. I was prepared for the stark landscape of a cedar glade, but not for how deeply this flat, arid land would affect me.

It has a beauty that can't be easily defined. It requires one to look closely at the ground to see small plants like sedum, moss and lichens; while remembering to look ahead to see the huge expanses of exposed limestone and to the shrubs and trees at the edges of the glade. (all photos enlarge)


Even in the intense heat there was life. A few Coneflowers/Echinacea tennesseensis were still in bloom, emerging from cracks in the limestone. There was evidence all along the wet weather stream bed of flowering plants that are able to tolerate the dry baking summer or the wet, cold winters. But bloom time was over.

This past Sunday, we made a late winter visit. The first thing you see is this open field.


Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) pioneer seedlings have begun to colonize. This will be a Red-Cedar/Hardwood Forest unless nature or the park naturalists burn the fields to control the growth and protect the glades. I don't know if or when they will have a burn, but the Little Bluestem and other grasses won't mind at all.


The Trail

The trail is a one mile loop that passes through the field and into a small shrub woodland. Shrubby St. John's Wort/Hypericum frondosum, Coralberry/Symphoricarpus orbiclatus, Aromatic sumac/Rhus aromatica and Glade Privit/Forestiera ligustrina populate this spot; along with the ever present red-cedars.








The glade was sopping wet....which is one of the characteristics of glades in winter; sticky, gooey wet.




The Tennessee coneflower field.

Gravel, limestone and full sun is the perfect home for Tennessee coneflower; it has a long tap root that extends into cracks searching for water and soil. There are only 5 known and naturally occurring populations all within 14 miles of Nashville. This Cedar glade supports the largest and most successful colonies of this federally endangered plant.
It was was thought to be extinct in the 1960s but in 1968, it was discovered to be growing in Lavergne, TN. That site is now a trailer park.






I want to photograph the glade from the same vantage points each time we visit. Don't you think this will be a good spot?




Opuntia humifusa/Eastern Prickly Pear is Tennessee's only cactus and is well established in the rocky, gravely portions of the glade. The spines are actually greatly reduced leaves and the fleshy pads are specialized for water storage and photosynthesis. I understand that it makes a tasty jelly, too.





This beauty is Leavenworthia stylosa. It is also called Nashville Mustard and is a member of the mustard family. This form has sweet violet coloring. There is an all yellow form and a yellow and white form. Leavenworthia is endemic to the Central Basin's cedar glades....you won't find it in a woodland setting.

Leavenworthia like many cedar glade plants can tolerate being under water for a period of time.



The wet weather stream. I wish the photograph could depict the water moving through the glade. During the summer it is bone dry and looks like a stone trail. I noticed coneflower growing in the water. This is a classic cedar glade ...a rocky, gravelly or grassy opening that might be surrounded by red-cedar forests or red-cedar/hardwood forests.



A closeup of the stream bed; aren't the colors spectacular. I like the way the green moss waves in moving water.



You can see how wide the stream bed is during wet weather. I just managed to get across and keep my tennie runners dry.


During the summer this is one massive limestone bed. It is beautiful in its starkness.



You have to keep looking down, there is so much to see on the glade floor.





I love this little sedge, it's also growing in my yard. I haven't had any luck identifying it. Identifying sedges is difficult even for experts or so I have been told! I do remember that sedges have edges, a nice rule of thumb, but even that is not completely accurate.




I managed to keep my feet dry until I accidentally grabbed onto a tree branch and was speared by this thorn. I was so shocked I stepped into the muddy water. The tree is Gleditsia Triancanthos /Honey Locust.



It's time to go, here's one last look before we leave the trail. That's 400 million year old Ordovician limestone.




There should be even more plants in bloom at the Glade next month.


Gail

*photo of Coneflower from the Kemper Center/ Missouri Botanical Gardens