Yard Work – June 2025

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This time of year, all the grasses are growing well. I have reduced the amount of yard with grass…but mowing is still the most time consuming form of yard work for me over the whole season.

My goal is to cut back on the area I mow and skew the ‘yard work’ toward establishing my native plant gardens. My shade garden is close to being the way I want it. Recently I’ve cut down pokeweed and pulled poison hemlock that was growing in the area near the young pawpaw trees. I took a picture of the compost pile the day after I added the debris from that effort. The stems of the pokeweed are still identifiable by color. The more delicate curls of vegetation are the poison hemlock.

In the new native plant garden in the front yard, I am digging out dandelions that are growing through the mulch….keeping the area clear for the native plants to spread and fill the space.

The area under the shortleaf pine was crowded with pokeweed up to the lower branches. I cut quite a few down and will let them rot where they fell!

On the plus side, I discovered some blackberries growing under the pokeweed!

The hackberry that was growing in the yew hedge was cut back – I don’t want a tree growing there. I couldn’t get to the root so it will likely return.

My goal in June is to do as much as I can to get the yard in great shape so there won’t be much aside from mowing in the hotter part of the summer.

Suburban Savanna – 2

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Last month was my first post about my goal to turn my yard into a suburban savanna. The series continues this month.

I’ve done the planting for the year already.

The last new plant was a free smooth sumac from the Earth Day Music Festival that I planted in the corner of the yard where oak leaves (neighbor’s tree) accumulate, and the dandelions have very large leaves. I hope it will eventually fill that corner of the yard.

I have discovered a sturdy red oak seeding (squirrel planted) in the bed that I made after a pine fell. I am letting it grow. There will be elderberry and beautyberry along with iris and naked lady lilies around its base. It will be a long time before the oak will be big enough to make shade an issue. I anticipate that the progression of this garden will be the most interesting of the yard.

The panicled aster Symphyotrichum lanceolatum that came up next to my driveway last summer is there again – and is larger. I am letting it grow since it is a fall bloomer and was full of pollinating insects last fall.

Goldenrods, rudbekias, and other asters are coming up in the yard too. I mow them in the front yard – keeping up the ‘look’ that the HOA wants for now – but I mow around them in the back and will let them bloom.

Our sprinkler system is over 25 years old and is fixed to begin the season…but might need to be replaced as more of the underground components fail (or leak). The further I get in the transition to native plants, the less watering the yard will require. I am going to water the native plant garden in the front yard this season to help the plants get established, but it might not need it in 2027! The decision to keep a sprinkler system might be driven more by our perception of how variable the rains will be as the climate continues to change than what the native plants require.

Next month I will write about the shade garden which is the most developed part of my suburban savanna.

Previous Suburban Savanna Posts:

April 2026

Our Missouri Yard – May 2026

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May was full of new growth in our yard.

In the front yard…the Kousa Dogwood bloomed…and began to fade. The Missouri Evening Primrose near the mailbox began to bloom. In the new native plant garden, the new plants (like the Ratttlesnake Master and Elderberry) began to thrive; there was a robin’s egg in the mulch under the maple there. The Virginia creeper was lush and green filling the spaces in the flower bed near the house and climbing over everything. There were some asters that came up in one bed on their own in spaces near some daylilies. In the side yard a clump of lambs ear and poke weed were in the same place as last year – not specifically planted but seemed to thrive in that spot.

The shade garden at the side of the house includes young pawpaws (one purchased from Ozark Soul last year, 2 from seeds of a pawpaw from the Roston Native Butterfly House, and 3 from seedling I bought from MDC). The American Spikenard presides over an expanse of violets (I’ve been harvesting the violet leaves to eat as leafy greens). The allium bulbs I planted the first fall we lived in the house bloomed in April and are forming seeds now. The hostas (not native) sometimes provide a contrast with nearby violets. The Eastern White Pine that makes the lower part of the shade garden may produce cones this year – if it does it will be the first time.

In the back yard….The Witch Hazel will probably grow rapidly this year; it did have a few blooms last winter but has no seed pods. The hollies are blooming (delighting bees). The garden where a pine once stood has lambs ear…some elderberries…and an oak seedling (squirrel planted); it will be interesting to see how it develops. The columbines along the fence have a few blooms but are fading….and the irises are done for the year. Some of dandelions seem huge and I wonder if they are a variety grown for greens; I will start to harvest them! The Fragrant Sumac that was the first native plant that I purchased is taking over a space near the patio; I need to keep the Japanese honey suckle away from it….otherwise let it do its thing!

May growth points to 2026 being a great year for my developing yard!

Daughter’s April Yard

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I am enjoying my daughter’s yard through her occasional pictures and when I am at her house. Early in April, she sent me pictures of the plants in her garden by the driveway. She was uncertain if the second one (not blooming) was a weed or something they had planted.

The small red buckeye we had seen in her yard last summer was up and had one cluster of blooms.

Later in the month the young tree had grown more than a foot and had two bloom clusters. Hopefully the hummingbirds are finding the flowers.

The bloom stalks were visible in two yuccas. Penstemons, azaleas, clematis, and yellow wild indigo were already blooming.

Several plants in the shady part of the yard (including oak leaf hydrangea and American spikenard were looking good too.

Her house was built in the 50s so many of her trees are quite large – particularly an oak, a river birch, and an Eastern Hemlock. Her yard has more shade than mine…and she is slowly adding more natives to the mix of perennials in the few sunny places.  

Our Missouri Yard – April 2026

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A lot was happening in my yard in April – beyond the planting of the native plants in my front flowerbed.

Early in the month was the maximum bloom time for dandelions, violets, fragrant sumac and daffodils.

A week or so later the crested iris and columbine were blooming.

The Kousa dogwood (Asian) and false shamrock Oxalis trangularis (South American) were also blooming.

The irises bloomed in several places in the yard. I cut some of them and enjoyed creating some macro images.

The Missouri evening primrose near my mailbox that was planted last spring is growing well – but not yet blooming. Once it starts it will probably have a lot of flowers.

The Virginia Creeper is looking good as the groundcover in my front flower bed.

I planted two more native plants near the end of the month: a red buckeye that I got from a Master Naturalist friend to replace the one that froze (and was killed) a few weeks before) and a smooth sumac that I picked up as a give away from a table at the Earth Day Music Festival in Springfield.

The American spikenard that I see from my office window is on its third season and is almost as tall as me. It dies back to ground level in the winter (i.e. it is not a woody plant) but the roots get more substantial as time goes by and it has been bigger every year I’ve had it.

I’m pleased with the way the yard is shaping up for 2026!

Pawpaw and Elderberry Seedlings

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I ordered Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) and Elderberry Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) seedlings from Missouri’s George O. White State Forest Nursery (a service provided by the Missouri Department of Conservation)….and they came last week! There were 10 seedlings for each species – the plan was for me to plant half of them in my yard and my daughter getting the rest for hers.

The box came in the evening, and I opted to plant the next day. They came in a box wrapped in paper backed plastic held in place with ties. The tops of some were showing at the top.

There was an instruction sheet that got a little damp even though it was outside the wrapping. The seedlings themselves had been packed with damp moss. They were labeled – the pawpaw is the darker bark/roots and the elderberry – aside from being lighter in color – had leaves beginning to emerge.

Digging the 10 holes was work; the day was cool but very humid. I planted 3 elderberry in the front yard native plant garden (these were the only easy holes because they were in mulch!), all the pawpaw in an area of my backyard that will become my pawpaw patch (it already had one plant that I purchased last fall), and the other 2 elderberry at two places in my back yard. It had rained not long before I planted, and rain was in the forecast, so I packed down the soil around them and let nature take over.

I finished up and took the remaining seedlings to my daughter…left her to dig her own holes. It was an exhausting day.

I hope at least half of what I planted survive….would be thrilled if more did. Getting seedlings this way was less expensive than buying that many plants from at native plant sales, but I am not as confident about their survival.

Slime Mold in the Oak Mulch

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I started my native plant garden last fall with a thick layer of wood chips – primarily oak from my daughter’s tree trimmers. I’ve only recently planted into it. When planting, I observed that while the surface looked dry, it was moist just below the surface. There were some areas of crust on the surface that I wondered about. Then the yellow splotches of slime mold appeared after a rain…..and a few days later dried out and became crusts like I had seen earlier.

It’s good to have natural cycles playing out in my yard…and molds are part that often go unnoticed. My goal now is to observe frequently….enjoy the garden’s evolution.

Suburban Savanna - 1

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Shortly after I started the 9-month Missouri Woodland Mentor series back in January, I started pondering whether the sterile suburban yards (highly fertilized, sprayed with pesticides, rigidly trimmed, full of non-native plants, toxic to most wildlife) could be transformed into something with a positive impact on the natural environment. It seemed to me that the definition of a savanna fit closest to what suburbs looked like on the surface: grass interspersed with trees providing less than 30% canopy cover.

There are some qualities of a suburb that would work against it becoming a full-fledged savanna:

There is too much impervious surface: streets, houses, sidewalks, driveways…which means that water will run off more quickly. There are often water retention ponds in newer developments to collect run off – somewhat slow the flow.

The building of the houses and infrastructure often is a severe disruption to the land: scraping off topsoil and hauling it away, removing almost all vegetation, and planting of turf. Sometimes there are a few trees planted by the builder – but they are not necessarily natives.  It takes a long time to recover from that disruption. It is the starting point for neighborhoods to progress toward a suburban savanna.

Even with those challenges, there are things I am already doing to nudge my yard toward the savanna goal:

  • I don’t spray pesticides or herbicides….and I don’t fertilize.

  • I don’t mow the fall leaves in my back yard until late spring (let the moths and insects emerge.

  • The non-native trees to Missouri (a Kousa dogwood and an eastern white pine and a variety of holly) are not going to be cut down…but I am planting more native woody plants: pawpaw, fragrant sumac, spice bush (hosted spice bush swallowtail caterpillars last summer), red buckeye, elderberry, and Ozark witch hazel. A red maple and shortleaf pine are the two native trees that were already growing in my yard. The forsythia and Japanese barberry will eventually be dug up.

  • The violets that were contained in a bed on the east side of the house when I moved here have been allowed to spill out taking over half the grass/moss area of that side yard. I have noticed more birds finding food in the debris from the violets over this past winter – even that small change has made a difference to birds.

  • I have planted a native plant garden in the middle of my front yard. As it matures – I will extend it so that there will be less ‘turf’ remaining.

  • Last summer I avoided mowing patches of clover I found growing in the year as a step toward improving the quality of the soil.

  • I am learning to recognize goldenrod, asters, and Rudbekia coming up in my yard that I can simply mow around!

I will post next month about my progress transforming my yard into a suburban savanna. My focus currently is on my yard …but I will take every opportunity to encourage others in my neighborhood to begin the process as well.

Planting Native Plants in the Front Yard

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I waited a day or so to plant the young plants – when the nighttime temperatures would not be dipping into the 30s again. I planted into the oak mulch that I had put down last fall. As I made the hole for the first plant, I noticed that the surface was dry but underneath for very moist. There were worms and small grubs and white fungus hyphae. The new plants are going to love it. Of course, this also means that plants I don’t want there were going to love it too….I will need to recognize and pull as they appear!

I planted 8 plants on the first day:

Wild Blue Indigo Baptisia australis and Cream wild indigo Baptista bracteate

Rattlesnake master Eryngium yuccifolium and Golden ragwort Packera aurea

Missouri Evening Primrose Oenothera macrocarpa and Nodding Onion Allium cernuum

Yarrow Achillea millefolium and Little Bluestem Schizachyrium scoparium

The Soapweed yucca Yucca glauca was planted the following day in a bed where I had to remove rocks and landscaping cloth. The bed is not covered by our sprinkler system and some of the plants previously there had not done well with the dry conditions.

Now that this first round of plants is in the ground, I am in monitoring mode….to water if it doesn’t rain enough and to pull weeds. I am expecting some elderberry seedlings that I will add to the front garden….and some pawpaw seedlings that will join one I planted last year in my back yard (completing the pawpaw patch).

Backyard Greens

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My backyard greens are ready to eat! I won’t be buying arugula or spinach again until the late fall. Since I don’t put any chemicals on my yard – they are safe to harvest/eat just before I need them.

Right now, the dandelions are full of blooms and I pick mostly flowers – although there are a few leaves too. I generally use them in stir fry since cooking reduces the bitterness of the leaves. The flowers are tasty cooked or fresh!

I use violet leaves like arugula. The flowers are edible – but only available in the spring. They are easy to harvest and seem to replenish themselves quickly. The violet patch has gotten bigger each year we have lived in our house – once I stopped mowing the area where they were spilling out of the flowerbed. They will be the ‘carpet’ under the American Spikenard and the small Red Buckeye and pawpaw and spicebush.

The dandelions are not native…but they are attractive to pollinators and their roots are deep – they hold the soil. So – I am OK with them in my yard. The violets are native and I am encouraging them to grow as far out into the yard as they want. They have taken over about a third of the yard area on the east side of the house; there they get morning sun but once the neighbor’s River Birch gets its leaves the area get less sun even in the morning; the violets thrive in that environment!

I am enjoying the green bounty of my backyard!

Battle with a Forsythia

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The forsythia was in the northwest corner of my backyard when we bought the house. It is non-native and does not do anything for my yard’s ecosystem – no pollinators visit its blooms; nothing eats its leaves. I have been trying to keep it controlled for the past few seasons, but it always seems to grow faster than I can prune it. I should have cut it and painted the stumps with poison last fall.

I did manage to cut it back more than ever before one morning last week and will go back to cut more soon. It was a lot of work, and I managed to clog my pruning chainsaw; that will take some effort to get it working again. I did most of work with my manual long handled pruners.  My gardening seat worked well….I slowly moved it around the plant cutting everything I could reach. My back only started hurting when I started carrying the trimmed branches up to the patio to dry (and then burn in a few weeks in the chiminea).

Last year I waited until after the plant had bloomed and it was a big mistake. This year there were a few flowers open….but I cut it all away from the plant! I am going to plant some native plant seeds in the soil left bare – it will be a bonus if any come up. I’ll keep cutting the forsythia back as severely as I can over this next season to give the other plants a chance to take over.

Our Missouri Yard – March 2026

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The dry days of March are great for working off my ‘to do’ list for the back yard. It does not include doing anything with leaves. I’m pleased that the wind has blown the leaves into two corners of the backyard where they can stay! I will leave them alone and allow whatever insect cocoons are there to empty. Most of the leaves are oak. My goal is start mowing parts of the backyard in May…but I will be mowing less this year than last because of the way the yard is developing.

The Fragrant Sumac I planted a few years ago now has shoots in the yard and is taking more space in the flowerbed as well. The ‘to do’ in that bed is to pull/cut Japanese honeysuckle frequently.

Getting the forsythia and Japanese barberry cut down are high on the ‘to do’ list. The pruning chainsaw will make it a bit easier.

I’ll buy 1 or 2 more paw paws to plant near the one I bought last year since I don’t think the seeds I have in pots are going to sprout.

The more significant list is for the front yard where I will be planting into the large mulch bed I created last fall. I have done one round cutting back the existing crape myrtles that had gotten too tall (I enjoy photographing their empty seed pods). There is some clean up there but the big ‘to do’ before the planting in April is to take dead cedars out of the corner flower bed and clear more rock from around the hens/chicks so that the plant can continue to expand. Trimming the boxwood is not high on the list but I might do the top to keep it from getting too high to reach comfortably.

There is plenty to keep me busy in March….on the dry days!

Spring Bulbs

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The early spots of color from spring bulbs are always welcome after the drabness of the winter palette. The area outside my office windows includes crocus and daffodils as the early bloomers with the green spears of iris leaves as a backdrop (the irises bloom later).

The daffodils are in the debris of last year’s violets and pine needles. I planted the bulbs a few years ago and they are increasing a little every year. I used a piece of black cardstock as background for one of the pictures.

The pine needle area has a mix of crocus and daffodils…more crocus at this point. The leaves of the crocus are thin enough that I often miss their presence until the flower appears!

This year the daffodils and crocus seemed to start their bloom together…with a lot of flowers opening on March 3rd!

Zooming – February 2026

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The images from this month were all close to home: my yard, my neighborhood, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, and Lake Springfield Greater Ozarks Audubon Trail. There was a mix of snow and winter images….the beginnings of spring. There would have been more places if the big snow had not cancelled two hikes that had originally been planned for February! Enjoy the zoomed images of my times outdoors during this month!

Our Missouri Yard – February 2026

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I put on my river boots to walk around the yard as the snow melted last week. I was glad to see the recently cut stump of the Callery Pear looked like it was rotting; I’ll be continuing to cut it until it is dead; the stems have thorns! The horse nettle fruits from last fall are a bit of color in the flower bed. An oat leaf blown from our neighbor’s tree was a point of interest in a snowbank on the far side of our yard. The forsythia in the northwest corner of our yard is another project where the pruning chainsaw will be used.

The high point of my walk was seeing that my small Ozark Witch Hazel is blooming! This is the time of year for it to bloom, but I hadn’t noticed the blooms before since the young tree kept most of its leaves. I am hopeful that it will take over the southwest corner of my back yard but that might take a few years.

Bulbs are up on the east side of my house, and the metal sculpture is marking something I planted last year (and adding some color). The Hens and Chicks are still doing well in our rock garden. The snow formed hieroglyph type shapes as it melted.

The forecast is for temperatures warm enough this weekend that I might get out to do some winter yard work!

New Tools

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I have two new tools.

The first one I bought at the end of last winter….and just now unpacked it – a Cordless Snow Blower (SnowJoe 48V 18-inch). The only parts that were separate from the pain unit were the two batteries, charger, and cover. I got it all out of the box then realized I need to read the manual since I haven’t used a snow blower before. I’ll do that in the next few days and be ready if there is snow in our forecast.

The second one was a tool I asked my husband to get for me – a pruning chainsaw (Ryobi 18V 6-inch). My sister had purchased one several years ago and enthusiastically recommended it. It came with a 2ah battery, and we had a 4ah one for our Ryobi weed-eater that will work with the chainsaw as well.

I am going to cut back the crape myrtles that are growing too high in the front flower beds and then work on cutting down the forsythia and Japanese barberry in my back yard. Those are my winter maintenance projects that can be done any day that gets above 60 degrees! I’ve read the manual and had a good first experience on one of the crape myrtles. I will only be cutting very small stems with my hand pruners from now on!

Oak Mulch

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The tree service finally came to trim my daughter’s oak and to handle a larger branch that fell from her Amur Maple…and they left a substantial pile of (mostly) oak mulch as we requested.

I have big plans for that mulch as part of my plan for transform my front yard with a native plant garden. I had used mulch from a maple there that had to be removed last summer to create three areas in my front yard and with the additional mulch I could make a much more substantial area for planting next spring.

We loaded bins and moved the pile one carload at a time. Even after the first 4 loads the new bed was looking bigger.

After the first big day, I only managed 2 carloads per day. It took 5 days in all (a total of 12 carloads…about 1.5-2 hours per load depending on traffic). On the last day, I was celebrating that my daughter’s driveway was back to normal….even though I still needed to spread the mulch and define the finally shape for the new bed!

I can hardly wait for the native plant sales to begin next spring. I’m going to review my plant list until then to be ready to shop and then plant my new garden in the oak mulch.

Our Missouri Yard – December 2025

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December had started off with some very cold days with low temperatures in the 20s or teens at night and barely getting above 50 on 3 days (other days the high was in the 40s). Almost all the trees had lost their leaves abruptly in November when we had some very cold days. As I walked around the yard taking pictures for this post, I found myself searching for color and interesting textures.

The Virginia Creeper that had been so beautiful in previous falls (red leaves) had either died back or retained the color for only a few days. Some of the vines retained their leaves – but they are brown rather than bright red.

The crape myrtles have interesting seed pods. I am going to cut them all back when there is a day above 50….they will look better next year if I do. One of them is tall enough to brush against the eve of the house so that one is the priority to get cut. The other one to tackle is the one that has a Callery Pear (wild form of the Bradford Pear) growing with it. The red leaves are the pear so I can (hopefully) cut it very close to the ground.

The bed near our front door has some color – bushes that are bright yellow (that need to be trimmed) and some plants that haven’t succumbed to cold temperatures yet because they are protected. The Japanese Maple in the corner has lost its leaves and may be dying; that corner has not worked well for that small tree.

The places where I put the bark mulch from our last tree trimming are holding up well. I will pull weeds from them and plant new plants into some of them next spring. The one under the Kousa dogwood mulch needs some native ground cover planted there…and maybe some of the lower branches cut.

There are seed heads on the lambs ear and goldenrod and chives…hopefully I will have more of those plants next year.

Our backyard is fenced and I am planting to not mow until early summer - leave the leaves. A lot of the leaves are from our neighbor’s oak and probably contain overwintering insects. The birds will appreciate the bounty – food for their chicks next spring. I am noticing that the circle where the pine needles are falling is enlarged than last year. I will be mowing less of the side yard next year! My long-term plan for the side yard a mowed path….not much grass at all…native plants filling in on both sides of the path (and maybe the path itself which might change from year to year.  

The bed where we removed a pine tree that fell over is more exposed that most of our beds. The plants there had frost. The small cluster of American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) fruit is a pop of color. Hopefully next year the beautyberry will begin to grow more rapidly and become the dominate plant in the bed at some point. I will probably allow a native tree that comes up (bird or squirrel planted)…whichever one shows up first: oak, redbud, or hackberry.

On the west side of the house there is a clover pillow that seems greener than the area around it. Maybe the grass growing there is greener with the extra nitrogen the clover provides in the soil! The witch hazel is still small but I am hopeful I might see a few blooms next year. It is a Missouri native – Ozark Witch Hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) which blooms in January/February.

I am watching the forecast for warmer day to get some cleanup done….and to put down a thick layer of mulch for my new bed that will be planting into next spring. My daughter will be getting more mulch when she has her oak trimmed.

First Frost

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The first frost at our house happened on Halloween! It was not universal…just on the most exposed parts of the front yard. It was the microclimates made visible! I took some pictures of the grassy areas impacted; I had mowed them the previous day. I took a few images of the grass…interested in the patterns ice crystals make on different surfaces. The ice seemed to outline the leaves. On the grass, the ice tended to enlarge any texture.

There is still a lot of green. The low temperature did not last long enough to be the killing frost for many plants. That will probably happen in the next few weeks.

Our Missouri Yard in Early Fall 2025

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Lots of changes in our Missouri yard. The Missouri Evening Primrose is blooming – seemingly liking the cooler temperatures (and the rain). It has not produced any seed; maybe there aren’t any pollinators finding it.

A very white mushroom came up in a part of the yard that hadn’t had mushrooms previously. Its surface looked a little like a roasted marshmallow.

The pollinators are waning with the flowers…and seeds are dominant as the growing season draws to a close.

Some leaves are still green…some turning very red. The Virginia creeper near our front steps is still green.

There are small branches from the oak on the ground (squirrels?) and what might be an oak seedling has colorful leaves.

The chives seeds are black and ready to topple from the husks; the goldenrod seeds are not yet mature.

The beautyberry has one small cluster of berries, and the poke weed berries are maturing (some have already been eaten by birds). The poke weed stems are magenta until the first hard freeze.

I am thrilled that my fragrant sumac has at least one part that has rooted outside the flowerbed…taking over a part of the yard. The rose bushes are blooming – a last hurrah before winter.

As I finished my walk around the yard, I noticed a lone dandelion puff….more plants with deeper roots to hold the soil next year!