Benjamin Vogt's Blog, page 23

Twilight on the Tallgrass -- Spring Creek Prairie

This is the place my wife and I had our wedding reception six years ago, but last night we were at their annual festival. Spring Creek is a virgin tallgrass island in a sea of cash crops, still sporting wagon ruts from an Oregon Trail cutoff, over 800 acres in size about 7 miles due southwest of Lincoln, Nebraska. There are plans to connect this prairie and the one near our home in Pioneers Park with a prairie corridor -- hopefully this happens within the next decade or so.
























...

Presentation, Plant Sale, Open Garden

This Saturday, 9/21, I'm opening my heart and soul to anyone who wants to poke and prod it. 





At 1pm I'll give a roughly 30 minute powerpoint presentation on native plants for wildlife that work well for me (if you've seen my talks before it'll pretty much be the same thing). I'll have enough seats for about 15 people, then you have to stand.



At 1:30pm, or a fuzz later, I'll open the garden for tours, questions, and a plant sale (proceeds of which will go straight into my buy a prair...

Unbroken

Out here in Nebraska prairie is an endangered species. In a little over a century it's been pushed back to bad soil, roadsides, and graveyards. Within it countless flora and fauna have broken. With no understanding we alter the landscape, we erase power before we understand, we undermine hope, we negate other cultures. We've done this for so long it doesn't seem wrong. I plant a bluestem and a milkweed where I can -- the act a shout against progress and manifest destiny, against hubris and ig...

To Butterly Bush or to Not Butterfly Bush (Or to Native or Not to Native)

No other plant seems to get people's engines revving more than butterfly bush. I mean heated arguments -- I've been in my fair share. Is it invasive or not? Well, Oregon doesn't let it into the state, and the USDA says it's naturalized on both coasts, and even in parts of eastern Kansas.



But that's not the core issue.



Does it support lots of insects by providing good nectar? If one person sees one monarch nectarting on it one day, it's always assumed to be a good plant to help butterflies....

Why I'm Becoming a Native Plant Purist

Because Trans Canada wants to put a pipeline through the Nebraska sandhills and above the Ogalalla Aquifer, and the oil is coming from tar sands which could be worse than mountain top removal mining when it comes to destruction of landscapes.



Because the next generation may not know what a rhino or elephant or polar bear is.



Because the arctic had the lowest recorded levels of summer ice ever.



Because our taxes go to subsidize farmers who can't afford GMO seeds and who plow up marginal pra...

Ludicrous Speed -- Fall Events

I'm not sure where summer went. Fastest one ever. I am certain that it was just last week when I bid farewell to the four classes I was teaching at two colleges, thrilled to have a long 3 month summer to research and finish the first draft of my prairie memoir (I got close, at 85,000 words). Now, the second week of school has ended and my calendar is piled high with events.



I'm on the board of Wachiska Audubon Society, a prairie education and conservation group, and our 40th anniversary gala...

Why Do Garden Designers Resist Native Plant Landscapes?

If you've been reading this blog since early July, you know how I feel about native plants and ecosystems, about what we're doing to the planet and to ourselves.



Gardening with native plants is a moral imperative. Period. A lot of landscape designers and architects who've been in the business much longer than me often decry my plea for all or mostly native plant landscapes. I tend to have a knee jerk reaction that makes me wonder how stuck in the mud they are.


"It can't be done where I liv...

Re-Prairie Lincoln

Prairie
is my home. Nebraska is my home. Yet there is so little prairie.
Therefore I feel homeless. I finally began to articulate this idea the
last few days as I've prepped tonight's Ignite Lincoln talk. I have less
connection to this ground precisely because so much of its ecology is
not local. I can't begin to make Lincoln my home without prairie, but
everything we do works hard to destroy the last of the prairie spaces
(and certainly not to restore much of it). So I begin to loathe the
p...

I'm Speaking at Ignite Lincoln

Ok folks. I'm one of 16 people speaking on 8/29, from 7:30-9:30, at Ignite Lincoln. We each have 5 minutes and 20 slides to make you laugh, cry, or get angry. I chose the latter. My topic will be "Re-Prairie Lincoln."



All proceeds benefit a local nonprofit, so get your ticket here.



I've been a bit nervous already -- the largest group I've talked to is about 100, twice, but this could be hundreds, even a thousand. Will I ignite a flame in you, or perform spontaneous combustion on stage when...

Our New Acreage

I like to torture myself -- but also dream. If you can imagine the thing, you can make it happen.



There is a fairly ideal acreage for sale in Prairie City, IA, which is 30 minutes east of Des Moines. It is also just 2 miles south of the 5,500 acre Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, where prairie and sedge meadows are being restored along with bison. What a link we could have with them educationally and ecologically.



Here are 80 acres we can't afford, and what I'd do with it if we had anot...