Plants for the Planet

It’s hot. And dry. But the heavy snows this winter and the rains this spring brought us grass and more grass. In the mountains, snowdrifts still send trickles of water through the quakies to the closest stream. And the wildflowers! They fill me up. It’s a good thing Mark focuses on the cattle when we travel the ranch because my eyes are on plants. I have to really concentrate when Mark expects me to drive the 4-wheeler and check fences.

The garden is bearing. I planted lots of carrots and beets to store for the winter. We’re doing our best to eat the thinnings (is that a word?). I’m stingy with water, and though I water the garden, things get dry around the house. I care more about seed heads and diversity for bugs and birds than looking neat and tidy. I call my yard a “wildscape.” If that’s not a word it should be. 

I’ve been having fun with my plant ID app. I take a photo in the mountains of a plant I can’t recognize and put it through the app when I get back in service. Then if I’m still uncertain, I type it into google and look around to make sure. I’ve learned a lot, mostly about what I don’t know. OK, it’s a ragwort, but there are all kinds of ragworts. Is this the native cinquefoil or the invasive, non-native cinquefoil? Is it hairy clematis or cotton grass? Look closely at the leaves to tell them apart. 

Plants don’t get near enough credit for the integral role they play in our world. They take the only readily available energy – the sun – and convert it to feed everything else. Plants from eons ago made the carbon stores that fuel our modern society. From consumer goods to transportation to shelter, we depend on the energy of fossil fuels. Plants hold the soil in place to slow wind and water erosion. They capture rainfall and snowmelt. They cycle carbon and feed microbes in the soil. Plants determine the makeup and health of whole civilizations. Most of us walk around clueless to this fantastic fact. 

And yes, plants are in trouble. From many directions - human development, fires/fire suppression, over grazing/under grazing, over tillage, climate change, invasive plants from foreign continents, and in general a simplification of the amazing complexity of species that rely on each other. 

Putting aside these challenges, which one has to do to find joy in life, tromping around in the diversity created over the millennia and marveling at how each plant has been named and catalogued by our own species, leaves me in awe.      

a favorite from the valley ranch, buckwheat

also from the valley ranch - veiny dock
we call them sand lilies

I'm going with wild garlic on this one, so delicate, just starting to open

brodea (cluster lily) and arnica

pretty sure this is hairy clematis, so unique!

prairie smoke, another fun one