Planting the Food Prairies

This post is part 2 of 2 of a series where I reflect on our food prairie design and planting in the Sprout garden.  I hope it inspires you.

18 APRIL | TUESDAY PRE-CLASS 7:30–9:20 Am

The blank slate of the food prairies!  How exciting!  

I arrived the morning of planting at 7:30 am to set up for my Herbaceous Plants class that would help to install the food prairies as part of their class project.  Hunter, one of my incredible student apprentices, prepped the food prairie beds the week before.  He had cleared them of any debris and small weeds, broadforked them, and then leveled them.  They looked fresh and ripe for planting in the glow of sunrise.

The first task I tackled was to mark and string the boundaries for our planting grid in the prairies.  The inspiration for this tactic was a photo I saw online of one of Piet Oudolf's installations where a massive grid system was laid on the ground.  In Illustrator, I had overlaid the students' design with a grid that partitioned each food prairie into eight 4' × 4.25' quadrants and then printed each species layer.  This paper grid would correspond with the one I was hammering into the ground to simplify plant placement for the students.  I printed several of these so that the students could use them as guides.  I installed stakes to mark the intersecting lines and used twine to demarcate the boundaries of our quads.  John and Rock, two other amazing student apprentices, arrived just in time to help with the stakes and string.  We outlined two of the four prairies for a demo before it was time for class to start.  I had students in class help on the other two.  

The food prairie design for the structural layer (plants listed above the design) and seasonal filler layer (plants listed below the design) is a kaleidoscope of color.  Here the four quadrants separated by thick black lines are shown together instead of as their separate beds for ease.  Circles approximate—and let me stress approximate as some species will spread—the final plant size.   

The other thing I did before students arrived was place stakes with species names on them in the garden.  That way, when students brought the trays up to the garden, they could put each species in its corresponding place.  The labels helped us be very organized as I knew trouble finding small plants or accidentally grabbing the wrong plant could cause chaos.

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18 APRIL | TUESDAY CLASS 9:30–10:20 am

I knew it would rain.  I had been planning the food prairie install for a year and a half, and the reoccurring fear I had was that some stalled front would dump 10 inches on us all week. 

I walked into the classroom to get the students, and the minute we walked outside, the wet stuff began to fall.  It wasn't a monsoon.  More like a light shower, barely above a mist.  However, the students didn't complain besides the occasional, "I'm cold."  

I sent a few students to get the plant trays, and I stayed on Sprout hill to help others begin laying out the stakes and string.  Most everything we planted was either a 3.5 inch pot or smaller save for a few species that we dug and divided. 

Once the grids were finished, I began to show students how to read the plans from our design.  I indicated that a plant needs to go roughly where it was on the design in its appropriate grid, but to the exact inch was too tedious.  Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury say in Gardens in Time and Space location matters less than the plant pallete as these designs can and will change over time. 

The food prairie grid and food prairie design for Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'Raydon's Favorite' (aromatic aster).  The red, purple, green, blue, and orange circled plants on the left correspond with the circled plants in the design on the right.  As you can see from the plant placement on the left, students were very adept at finding each propagule's final spot.    

Plants goin' in the ground!  

I also told the students to not walk on the beds.  I knew with around 20 species to install and 12–14 students helping there would be lots of soil compaction.  Therefore, I encouraged them to use stepping stones as landing pads.  I must compliment them.  They were very diligent about caring for the soil, even when I wasn't looking.  :-)  

These plastic stepping stones helped us prevent excess soil compaction.  

Since the class was only an hour, we did a trial run installing two species.  The rest would wait for lab.  I was immediately impressed with the students' collective ability to read and interpret the plan.  They worked in pairs and helped each other find where plants went. 

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18 APRIL | TUESDAY LAB 1:00–2:50 pm

For lab, we were able to hit the ground running since the grids were in place and most of the plants were on site.  I made comments about it not raining, to which some of the students griped that I was jinxing us all!  Fortunately, it didn't rain another drop for the whole project.

We started by digging a few structural-layer plants like Asparagus officinalis (asparagus) and Rudbeckia maxima (great coneflower) we propagated in the ground for the install.  At first, I checked the students work against our design, and once I saw they were able to follow the design, I let them work on their own.  Overall, we were able to install 13 species today, and we got the majority of the structural and seasonal filler layers installed. 

The chaos of creation

Teamwork makes the dream work.  

Photo from the end of day 1.  From this overhead shot of two food prairies in the midst of our cut flower and vegetable beds you can appreciate how the grid system helps students visualize where plants go.  

20 APRIL | THURSDAY CLASS 9:30–10:20 am

This morning, we continued to plant other components of the seasonal layer.  We also started planted dynamic fillers like Gaura (Oenothera) lindheimeri 'Sparkle White' (Lindheimer's beeblossom), Oenothera biennis (evening primrose), and Gaillardia aestivalis var. winkleri (Winkler's firewheel), and I had a few students start plugging in Carex cherokeensis (Cherokee sedge) that would comprise the groundcover layer.  

After I got them started, I climbed on top of the building and sneaked a few aerial shots.  

Hehe, they didn't even know I was on the rooftop for a while.  

From the rooftop, I saw Donna McCollum of KTRE filming students planting, and I came down to greet her.  I was excited that she came out to feature these perennial projects our students were installing at SFA.  Plus, the students were planting these garden beds the week before Earth Day, and they were able to discuss the sustainability of the plantings for the clip.  She asked me some questions, and then she interviewed several of the students.   Here's her segment if you'd like to watch. 

A rare photograph of me teaching as Donna McCollum films a piece on the food prairie plantings.  Photo by Hunter Walker.

Donna McCollum of KTRE interviews SFA Horticulture student and Team Sprout member Hunter about the food prairies. 

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04/25 | TUESDAY CLASS 9:30–10:20 am

The food prairies were really becoming full of flora.  Today, our main objective was the matrix layer—Carex cherokeensis, Bouteloua curtipendula (sideoats grama), and Sisyrinchium angustifolium (blue-eyed grass).  At this point it was mainly filling in open spaces that we hadn't filled yet with other flora, and we mostly completed two of the four food prairies this morning.  Also, towards the end of the hour, I had a student begin plopping Narcissus × odorus (campernelle) bulbs into the food prairies according to our design.  

Bouteloua curtipendula plugs lay scattered in vacant areas in the food prairies.  

Even a broken leg doesn't stop students like Cierra from helping plant!

Reagan smooths soil around Sisyrinchium angustifolium.  The sun came out long enough for the plants to open their beautiful blue flowers.  

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04/25 | TUESDAY LAB 1:00–2:50 PM

We picked up where we left off this morning on the groundcover layer.  And, just like that it was finished!   

Wa-hoo!  The food prairies are planted!  

Or, should I say it's just begun since they will change and evolve over time? 

Later in the week, a few of my student apprentices applied a thin layer of mulch to reduce weed germination.  Of course, we want the plants to grow thickly enough to shade the soil so weeds won't have much of a chance, but this initial covering will help the installed plugs gain a solid footing.  

Watering in the students work.  We removed the grid overlay after the install was finished.  

In the end I believe that this type of planting is great for students because of the randomness to it.  They were very capable of following the design, and if they didn't put the plant in the exact spot, it's ok. In total with everyone's help, I roughly calculated that we invested approximately total 80-90 hours in the project for planting and installation.  

SFA students happy to be finished and happy to have a positive impact on the world.  The food prairies will add beauty to the garden and provide habitat for a number of beneficial insects.  

Now, we wait and watch as the food prairies burgeon with growth.  

Designing the Food Prairies

As a educator, I find the process of learning fascinating.  Maybe even you've caught hints of the magic.  When you're really passionate about a topic, it's like your brain turns into a sponge as you soak up every drop of knowledge, and wring it all back out again to transform something, some surface of existence that needs a good scrubbing.  Read and study all you want, but at some point you have to go and do.  

Heaven knows that's me with mixed plantings.  Probably since 2012 when I first heard Claudia West speak at PPA in Boston or 2013 when I travelled to the Netherlands with Piet and Noel's book in hand, I've been reading about designed plant communities and standing on the shoulders of giants as I've accrued knowledge from those eager to share their craft of interpreting nature. 

I made a special point to visit this park in Leuvehoofd in Rotterdam at a conference in the Netherlands a few years ago.  It was the first Oudolf installation I ever saw, and it was enlightening seeing plants intermingled.  

I wanted to do something with all I had absorbed.  Since 2015, I have been working on designing mixed plantings in the Sprout garden at SFA that we've deemed the food prairies.  Like I shared in a previous post, I wanted to have these plantings in the Sprout garden because of the benefits—they would add beauty to the garden, they would help to attract beneficial insects, and let's be honest, I love the prairie-look.  AND, I wanted to teach and educate our students about the design, the installation, and the management of these style of plantings.  Much of the work on synthesizing these planting combinations has been done in the north or abroad, and we need to adapt the methodology for the southern US.  

I started by drawing and iterating several different designs for the food prairie beds.  The design that won was to have four beds, two on either side of our primary axis path totaling a little over 600 square feet of planting space.  The plantings would be in-between our food growing areas, thus dividing the garden into thirds.  I was inspired by Piet Oudolf's work at Scampston Hall where Deschampsia cespitosa (tufted hairgrass) segregated patches of lawn.  This design resonated with me, perhaps because most of my life I grew up around fence rows that partitioned the landscape.  Additionally, our mini fence rows amplify the reclaimed farm theme I'm going for around the SFA agriculture building. 

Decisions on plant material came next.  Initially, I considered adding a few shrubs, but after reading Planting in a Post-Wild World, I nixed them.  Thomas and Claudia argue that open spaces like our full sun slope call for the grassland archetype and herbaceous species should dominate.  Additionally, woody material would likely dominate the space, and the absence of shrubbery would aid maintenance and early season clean up with our student apprentices. 

Since my arrival in Nacogdoches, I documented when species were in flower and how long their ghosts persisted in the landscape.  I had a steep learning curve to climb as the flora of Texas bloomed a month or two earlier (or later in the fall!) than where I lived in Tennessee or North Carolina.  

In the fall of 2015, the students and I installed trial material from Hoffman Nursery, Intrinsic Perennials, and Jelitto to see which species would fare well.  Since we were overhauling the entire garden, I decided to grow them on site.  These evaluations helped to lengthen the plant list that follows, especially for the species comprising the matrix. 

The list of species for the food prairie that I would eventually share with my students.  L = leaf, F = flowering, and S = seed or senescence.  Overall, colors *roughly* match the species, but white was coded as gray so that it would be visible on a white background.  

Early on in the design process, I knew that the installation would be perfect for my Herbaceous Plants class slated for the spring of 2017.  Many regale this type of planting as the future of horticulture in urban areas, and I'm not going to have my students left in the dust. 

SFA students in Herbaceous Plants learning how plants grow in nature. Exciting times!!!

I began developing curriculum to teach the concepts of mixed plantings.  For our first lab, I took an idea that Angela Treadwell-Palmer shared with me that she did in school under W. Gary Smith—take students out to observe how plants grow together in nature.  They got to see the patchwork quilt of flora and how plants actually grow in the wild—randomly following environmental gradients, arranged in layers, and sans mulch but smothering the ground with foliage. 

Also, early in lab we began propagating plants for the food prairie to allow them time to grow and develop for our late April install.  Stock plants of Pycnanthemum tenuifolium (narrow-leaf mountain mint), Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'Raydon's Favorite' (aromatic aster), and Allium tuberosum (garlic chives) were ripped apart by green fingers, and the divisions grew to the surprise of a few students.  And, Echinacea cultivars (purple coneflower), Oenothera biennis (evening primrose), and Achellia millefolium (yarrow) seed were sown and germinated promptly.  

In class, we discussed concepts about ecology to reiterate the growth patterns plants exhibit in nature like survival strategies, succession, and colonization.  We covered mixed plantings, why this approach is becoming more prevalent, and how to do it.  We covered the layers—structural, seasonal filler, matrix, and dynamic filler.  And, then I had the students design and develop a small modular design much like Roy Diblik presented in his book The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden.  One student even went as far as developing a module where she used the ten digits in the number pi to arrange her 10 species in her module.  (Great example of soaking it up and wringing it out, eh?)

After we covered all this material, we set about in lab designing the food prairies.  I created a 1 in = 1 ft scale drawing showing the four food prairie quadrants, and had students cut out 1, 2, or 3 inch squares to correspond with the rough maximum plant size each species would get.  On these squares students used markers to color and code an abbreviation for each species.  Then, they came up and added them to the drawing, I voicing advice all the way about which plants would look good together and which ones for which layer.  Once we were finished, I photographed the design and imported it into Adobe Illustrator where I overlaid the squares with circles.

Students in Herbaceous Plants plan and arrange the structural (left) and seasonal theme (right) layers for the food prairies.  

I'll admit the first time we did this I encouraged them to put WAY too many plants on the design sheets.  I had to cull some of the squares they placed but, by the end the numbers closely matched the design percentages from Planting in a Post-wild World and notes I took in a Cassian Schmidt talk. 

I showed students the final design, and we set the week of April 17-21 for the install. 

— CHALLENGES —

While I did much prep in the year and a half prior, the biggest challenge I faced was cramming the design and synthesis of mixed plantings into a 3 month period, from the first day of class to the install.  Doing a design by yourself is testing enough, but try organizing things well enough to have 12 other people help!  It's a whole 'nother endeavor.  But, the teacher in me enjoyed it and reveled at the light bulbs going off in class and lab as I exposed the students to the full gamut of the design and install of mixed plantings.  I didn't want to give them a fish; I wanted to show them how to use the bait and tackle. 

I'll also admit I had fears, which I've learned is common when you make the shift from traditional plantings to this novel approach.  Fear of failure.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of weeds.  Fear of too many plants being used.  Fear of too few plants being used.  Fear of the propagules not being big enough.  Fear of this planting not being in my backyard but other there for the world to see. 

But, as most things are in life, if you don't have angst doing a project and you don't feel resistance, it probably means the task is not worthwhile. 

Now with all that we've learned, let's go plant it.  The install, Part 2, is coming soon. 

Sprout Germinates

Colorful lettuce grows in neat rows in the Sprout garden.

I’ve been at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) for a year and a half now, and in the haze of starting a new job (and, a wonderful haze it has been!), I haven’t had a chance to record the progression of thinking I’ve had on garden projects at SFA.  Thus, I wanted to start doing a series of blog posts to bring myself (and you) up to date on my activities.

I was so thrilled when I got the job at SFA.  Teaching about plants and horticulture has been my career goal since I was at least a freshman in undergrad.  The biggest challenge I would face at SFA was student enrollment.  The number of horticulture students were at a lull (much like they are across the country), and my colleagues were trying to discover a way to increase enrollment.   They shared with me that a fresh face would help, but I knew that we had to do more that just be present.  We had to visibly show the students that we were relevant and that we cared about their lives and their futures.

While I was pondering how to engage with more students, I was also trying to see where I fit.  I’ve had the herbaceous plant craze for several years, and I knew that there was an opportunity to beef up the perennial collections.  On top of that, SFA already has a large woody plant collection, and several of my colleagues across the nation are doing great work with woody plant breeding and evaluation. So, in the spirit of zigging instead of zagging, I starting laying the groundwork for working with herbaceous plants.

That was also the time when I realized there was a way we could weave edibles into the mix.  In conversations with Dawn Stover, the research associate at SFA Gardens, I discovered there was an edible garden on campus, the SFA Sustainable Education Community Garden.  This garden's original focus was to grow produce and then donate it to the community, but eventually, the garden produced so much food that some of it was being sold at a small farmer’s market behind our ag building on the SFA campus.

I quickly realized that this garden was it.  This garden is how we could begin to bridge the gap to help connect horticulture with students.  If we couldn’t at least engage their hearts, we could bridge a connection with their stomachs.

And, of course, I don’t have to belabor how big edibles are right now with young people.

I offered to take over the garden and revamp it since SFA Gardens had many other projects on their plate.  Right off the bat, I knew that the SFA Sustainable Education Community Garden needed a mission (and a shorter name).  But, I hate the word mission because so many organizations have missions but never really follow these framed statements on the walls.  We would have a story as Ty Montague describes, and our day-to-day actions would tell our story, a story I hope would attract both students and people from the community.  

Plants were an obvious choice to be part of our story.  But, which plants?  I chose to focus on edibles and 21st century relevant herbaceous plants (plants for zone 8, urban areas, designed plant communities, etc.).  I felt that both areas would help us to be relevant to students.  We could grow the plants, evaluate them, use them in classes, and report our evaluations to the public.

I wanted our story with the garden to also focus on students.  One thing that I heard over and over at SFA is that they wanted students to have more hands-on learning, and I saw the garden as an opportunity for tangible growth for students.  I wanted the garden to be something that students enjoyed and be designed to get students talking and engaged.  We as a people are ultimately social organisms, and one of the best ways to engage people with horticulture is to get them excited and share ideas with their friends.

The community was also a central focus.  Dawn told me that one of her favorite parts of the farmer’s market was that we had the opportunity to connect horticulture with a different audience on campus.  And, I saw that we could do more events and tours to help educate, inspire, and connect with people in the community even more.

Plants.  Students.  Community.  And with that trinity, we rebranded the garden as Sprout—a garden for tangible growth for plants, students, and the community.  Not too shabby if I do say so myself.  I even doodled a new logo for the garden.

We also have one more part of our story woven into all three of those parts.  Fun.  We want to teach people that gardening is fun and enjoyable and adds to the quality of life.  And, we try to embellish everything that we do in the garden with that philosophy.

I hope that my brain dump will help guide you if you are faced with a similar situation in your career.  Thanks for reading about the start of Sprout.  Soon, I will do a post about our first year successes and failures.  Until next time, keep growing!