I spent one of my days off weeding the prairie I had built six years ago. Julie was laid off recently and we had to let the guys who mow our lawn go. The downside is all this rain has meant a lot more time spent mowing the lawn. The upside is they never seemed to be able to leave that part of the yard alone. I weeded out the cheat grass earlier this season and with this second pass at weeding it’s really coming together. We have beautiful flowers growing inside of it. There’s still some bermuda mixed in there, but as the buffallo grass is able to shade it and grow denser at the surface it seems to at least be controlling it somewhat. There are still some holes, but it’s really coming together. I feel like it’s in a really good place rolling into the summer. The buffalo grass is really strong and is probably going to choke out a bunch of the other plants once the triple-digits hit.

Also look at the six year difference in that Agave. It’s one of the pups from Pam’s agave Moby.

• buffalo-grass
• grass
• xeric
• prairie

I had bunion surgery on my left foot and am just now getting back to gardening. One of my projects has been resurrecting our buffalo grass lawn we sodded in 2020. It looked really good, but I let cheatgrass go to seed one year and things have been looking ratty.

Crawling around pulling cheat grass is actually something you can do while you can’t put weight on your foot, so I started this project in December. But I’ve continued working on it. I’ve got a bag of Thunder Turf * from Native American Seed, and I’ve mixed in some bluebonnet seeds in hope of getting something that will compete with the cheat grass.

Cheat grass is just the worst. You’re desperate in December for something to cover the ground and keep the dogs from tracking mud in the house, but invariably you have your first 90 degree day, it all turns to dust, and then we have a tsunami in a newly patchy lawn, so all the mud comes in.

Anyway - here’s hoping I can resurrect the lawn.

• what I think of every time I hear THUNDERTURF

• cheat grass
• xeric
• buffalo-grass
• grass
• prairie

I was weeding on Saturday. It was time to clear out the bluebonnets. While doing so I noticed a barrel cactus I had completely forgotten about. You can (not) see it in the below picture. Which is amazing because it’s pretty dang big.

But first a related tangent. When Etta was a baby we went to a farmer’s market outside of Bastrop. While there I picked up two tree seedlings and planted them. Fast forward 11 years and as part of putting in a pool we had to remove these two trees. So I took pictures with Etta to show how much they had both grown.

Ok, so now we’re done with that nostalgia. Do you see the yucca on the far right? The really lovely one? During the pool construction it got beat up. Repeatedly rammed with a digger. Soil was worked into pretty much every single one of its leaves. It ended up looking like this:

Yesterday I finally took it out. There were thankfully some pups underneath. One was a good candidate for replacing the original. I also added that invisible barrel cactus from the original bed, and ended up with this.

I try not to make extra work in the garden, but sometimes the results are worth it! I’m also adding a bonus shot of the agave pup I got from Pam Penick’s Moby surrounded by moss verbena. I’m excited to watch this bed change over time.

• buffalo-grass
• grass
• xeric
• prairie