Where is little bluestem found

Frost turns the plants a reddish or coppery color that remains through the winter. If the plants are allowed to remain standing through the winter, they provide shape, texture, and color into the winter months. Use little bluestem as an accent in the border, or in drifts in natural settings, prairies, or wildscapes that blend into the surrounding woods, pasture or other natural areas at the edge of the home landscape.

It makes stunning displays when massed on a large scale, undulating in the breeze. It is a great transition plant between the garden and a natural field or meadow.

Little bluestem is prone to lodging on rich soils. This grass grows best in full sun. The plant will be taller and therefore more prone to flopping late in the season on rich soils and shorter on dry, infertile sites. Do not fertilize heavily and not at all on richer soils. Although it is not recommended for heavy clay, it will grow on clay soils. Watering and overfertilization will promote lodging.

Little bluestem clump beginning to grow in spring. Little bluestem can be started from seed — particularly when used in larger plantings such as meadows or prairies — or from divisions.

However, the clumps do not need to be divided very often. This species and most other grasses are best divided and planted in the spring, to allow the full season for their roots to develop.

Grasses planted or transplanted in the fall may not establish well enough to survive winter. It should be seeded as early in the spring as possible. There are several varieties and cultivars of little bluestem. Please enable JavaScript on your browser to best view this site. Little Bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium , is one of the three dominant species that make up our tall and short grass prairies. It can be found from Canada to Mexico and from the east coast to the west coast.

The height will vary from one foot up to three or four feet, depending on the soil and rainfall it received. I recently observed the grass in our local school rain garden and it was five feet tall and falling over. Junction receives an average of inches of rain a year, and it definitely had not been a wet year, but the design of the garden had held the moisture, letting the Little Bluestem and the other natives there grow larger.

Little Bluestem is suitable for any area. As well as being a foundation species for both the tall and short grass prairies, it is also beautiful in commercial and suburban landscapes. It is a major component in any native restoration mix because of its easy establishment and its ability to grow in almost any soil type. Leave this perennial grass in the garden through winter where it will serve as a food source and shelter for wildlife.

In early spring use hedge shears to cut it back to about three inches above the soil. Be patient; little bluestem won't send up new foliage until late spring. Plant more of our top ornamental grasses in your garden. Schizachyrium scoparium 'The Blues' is a newer selection that offers grass blades that are more blue than the wild species.

In autumn, it turns burgundy purple. Zones It's time to debunk a garden myth: Goldenrod does not aggravate allergies! The pollen is too heavy to fly in the wind and instead sticks to the legs of the insects and butterflies that feed on its nectar. It's one of the most glorious flowers of late summer and early autumn, with the wild type blanketing ditches and other open, moist sunny places. In your own garden, choose the hybridized types that are shorter, longer-blooming, and don't spread out of control.

Divide or take cuttings of these to increase your supply; seed will not come true. Asters get their name from the Latin word for "star," and their flowers are indeed the superstars of the fall garden.

Some types of this native plant can reach up to 6 feet with flowers in white and pinks but also, perhaps most strikingly, in rich purples and showy lavenders.

Not all asters are fall bloomers. Extend the season by growing some of the summer bloomers, as well. Some are naturally compact; tall types that grow more than 2 feet tall benefit from staking or an early-season pinching or cutting back by about one-third in July or so to keep the plant more compact.