Journalist and photographer
Jeri Dobrowski shares photos, with comments, from her prairie
flower garden on the Montana-North Dakota border:
We know it's officially
spring on the Great Plains when the crocus poke their heads
up through the grass. Their short stems make it difficult to
find a container small enough to serve as a vase. This
demitasse cup works nicely.
Tulips
My mother loved tulips.
She's given me gallons of bulbs through the years as she
thinned her beds.
Thermopsis rhombifolia: Golden Pea
Growing up, we called
these sweet peas. They were the first flower of the spring
(we didn't have crocus). They have the most heavenly-sweet
fragrance!
Fawn
June 12, 2009: Found while
looking for asparagus.
Oriental Poppies
I got the start of these
from my paternal grandmother, Hallie Janssen, who raised
them in her garden at Coalwood, Montana. She admonished me
when she gave the plants to me: "Put them someplace where
you don't care if they take over, because they will!" Our
soil is less than ideal, and they've done just what she said
they would.
Lilacs
A June hailstorm three
years ago took a toll on all our trees. This is the first
year since that we've had much of anything for lilac
blossoms. On June 6, we received 3" of snow. It was the
first time I've seen snow on lilac blossoms.
Tame Sunflowers
Both common and cultivated
sunflowers thrive in the heat and dry conditions of the
Great Plains. Wild sunflowers grow alongside roads and in
the ditches, or wherever native sod has been disturbed.
Confectionary and oilseed sunflowers are grown by area
farmers.
California Poppies (with petrified wood accents)
This oak water tank sets
out in front of our house. My father-in-law had used it when
he ran cattle on the place. We replaced it with an electric,
heated waterer. It was languishing in a state of neglect in
the hay yard when I got the idea to use it for a flower bed.
It took a considerable time and effort to rehydrate and move
it.
California Poppies
I have another variety of
hardy California Poppies growing in a rock garden that have
white or albino petals mixed in with the the more common
yellowish-orange flowers.
Shepherdia argentea: Silver Buffaloberries
In 2008, the
buffaloberries were amazingly plentiful in our part of the
country, so much so that the bushes appeared red from a
distance, rather than the usual gray/green. My husband and I
spent one Sunday afternoon picking these tiny berries so I
could make a batch of pancake syrup. I blended them with
chokecherries, which were in short supply last year. Thorns
on buffaloberry bushes make picking slow and painful. I've
heard some folks say to wait until after a frost, lay a tarp
beneath the bush, and to knock, tap, or beat them off with a
stick. I really need to give that a try sometime.
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