We really do live in a beautiful state and you can tell by taking a stroll through one of our native or restored prairies. We are now reaching the fourth month in a row of constant flowers that have continued to grace this native prairie remnant on the great western trail here in Cumming. There have not been many new flowers to talk about this week, however the prairie is the most beautiful that I have seen it all season as the grasses and flowers are now complementing each other very well. The grasses are up to 5 ft tall from the abundance of rain we have gotten this year.
Some prairie plant roots can grow so deep they can reach depths that are deeper than trees! This is why the soil in Iowa is so rich and black because prairie plants add nutrients to the soil through decaying plant material that is added each year plants die back.
This is my favorite image of the prairie yet. I stood near the edge of the trail and held the camera as high as I could and took this nice photo of all the flowers together near the middle of the prairie remnant. Just picture this view being in place of the miles and miles of cornfields you see now – you have an image in your mind of what much of Iowa used to look like prior to pre-settlement. 87% of the state was covered in what you see above, with the rest of that percentage being forest or marshland. Forests were mostly found in river valleys and patchy areas of northeast/southern Iowa. With this being said, I’d like to move on to this weeks topic of prairie history. What did the landscape look like before Iowa’s largest city, Des Moines, was created?
Well, if one could travel back in time before Des Moines and its suburbs, you would have seen an image similar to the one above – a mixture of different landscapes. A narrow strip of woodland existed in the Des Moines and Raccoon River Valleys. All of downtown Des Moines was wooded and contained some wetlands/marsh, much like the Saylorville Lake area. Then, in all directions as you got away from the river, you would have run into rolling hills that were mixed with oak savannas and prairie grasslands. Where the Capitol building is today was likely on the border of the river valley and woodland forest. Beyond that, there were vast grasslands as far as you could see – which is what the suburbs are today. West Des Moines, Ankeny, Clive and Pleasant Hill, among others, were all part of this prairie grassland that extended away from the rivers. Next time you’re driving around the area, think to yourself what it once was. Can you picture it?
New in bloom this week is the Partridge Pea, which is abundant in the prairie as well as several isolated locations on the trail that are not part of the prairie remnant. The flowers on these are interestingly beautiful. This plant is not widely available for retail sale at this time.
One of prairies most important blue grasses is finally in bloom this week. Big Blue Stem is showing its showy seed heads that look like a turkeys three-toed foot. This was the most predominant grass in the Iowa prairie. It has wonderful seed head and the entire plants turns red in the fall (October, November time frame) and it looks great in the snow. This plant has been becoming increasingly popular in retail sale and is now widely available if you look for it. I have three of these plants and it is on one of my favorite grasses list.