One Step Ahead of the Bulldozers

It's easy to locate the baby bluebonnets once you know what your are looking for.

The glory of gardening: 

hands in the dirt, 

head in the sun, 

heart with nature. 

To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, 

but the soul as well.    ~ Alfred Austin 

Bulldozers are moving across the road. They are breaking up the limestone shelf that underlies this area. And they are scraping off the surface - the rocks, fossils, trees, and native plants. It's one of the reasons I've madly saved seeds, taken cuttings, and dug up identifiable plants over the last 8 months. 

Who knows if I'm making any difference in the neighborhood (although birds, butterflies, grasshoppers, and more are visiting my carefully planted yard), but I'm making a difference in me. I gathered a trowel, a pot, and some gloves to save a few bluebonnets. 

Two large pieces of machinery - bulldozer and hydraulic rock breaker, silenced for today, will be busy tomorrow. The disturbed ground is thick with yellow, spindly bastard cabbage. 

One has to work quickly - before the new plants are too big. Rumor has it that bluebonnets do not like to be disturbed (this is my second effort as the first - a trial run - was successful), but do fine if one catches them early. An additional concern was that the ground is hard and rocky and darned near impossible to work in some spots. I'd need to look for places where the soil was soft.

Whatever. As I walked across the street I fielded a call from a friend who was heading to a local lake (rare birds had been reported) and we planned future trips - masked and distanced - to feed the soul in the dark, cold, dangerous, and dreary days of winter. Then the small circles of leaves spotting the field called for rescue.

Seedlings were visible everywhere - in the tracks left by machinery, in grassy edges, and in soft lose soil as well.  What is usually a promise of a blanket of blue blossoms today signaled a coming tragedy. A house with non-native turf would cover this spot soon. Other plants would grown in manicured flowerbeds. Wild plants and creatures would be permanently displaced.*

Tracks across the lots.

This seedling was almost too large for rescue.

Another call arrived as I was digging. I lost count as I talked and dug. I counted when I finished replanting. It seems about 30 plants were "disturbed." Most were planted in pots - for sharing. Some were added to the garden. I'll need to mark them so I don't crush them myself.

The leaves always make me think of hands, lifting the plant out of the ground.

See - creatures NEED natives! [Moth caterpillar of some kind]

NOTES:

* Most of these houses have horrible Bermuda grass and a variety of landscaping plants that have nothing to do with the area. [Of course, there still is the utility/passage easement behind these lots. Wild things will grow there until a roadway is built there in the next 10 or 20 years. For now I haunt it a bit, identifying plants and calling up birds.

Final note: There are liatris and Mealy Blue Sage in a different field that still need "sorting." I suspect there's one more adventure in store for this day. I'll need a shovel and boots. The grass is tall there.

This is a bit of the field. It's pretty big. That grass is more than knee high. But I was determined. At some point this field will be developed just as the lots across the street from the house are being developed now. Still, I'm going to save the plants I can - a drop in the bucket, but I'm betting the wildlife will notice.

Bloomed-out, dry fuzzy seed-heads of the liatris glowed in the early evening sunlight.

It is hard not to love this plant. I dug corms and harvested seeds. I think I will have the best luck with the corms as they are already rooted and growing.

Liatris rescue - Day 2!

Work ahead. I'll shake off the extra soil, trim off the old stems, and ship some out to the siblings. Extras will be potted for native plant folks.

I used a small shovel the other day - easier to carry, but not as good a tool. Today I used the new sharpshooter. Worked like a charm.

I figured out a process that worked.

Borrowed the gloves from the one who used to "have my back." Seems to have worked. No snakes, no chiggers (so far), and no arrests (there was a traffic officer watching the school zone earlier. I waited to avoid any awkward questions).