Essays

Wild On The Prairie: Plants

A Walk in the Garden in March
March 4, 2001

This winter has been very moist; in fact, it is the wettest winter in what seems like a decade. Emerald green rescue grass sends a sybaritic shiver through me. I know most people call it winter ryegrass and hate it, and want to kill it, but I wish it could be nurtured and increased!

I never water anything at Gone Native during the winter. During the dry years I usually gave a “goodnight soaking” in late October, and then a “wake-up” watering in late February. I have not watered since September, and there is moisture enough in the ground to last into March. I love the rain. Oh my, oh my! How wonderful!

The vernal explosion of growth can be overwhelmingly intense. Daily routines can cause inattention to matters of the earth, but every time I do get a chance to take the time for a walk, I am thankful for the restoration and inspiration received. Walking is a meditation. It is a time to reflect upon items read, movies seen, or other stories seen or heard on the cultural public media outlets. Meditation during walking is a synergistic endeavor. A person is free to follow a digression, to aimlessly imagine. How does an idea fit into the bigger scheme of things, and how does it compare to similar ideas? How does our present-day mass culture compare with cultures not our own? I love to listen to the stories of other people in other places.

I have great admiration for the Dine’. “May you walk in beauty, and may you walk in balance.” The heart of their philosophy is a calm spiritual thankfulness (hozhro) that brings ego-less awareness and consciousness. They do their best to listen to the wind. For the Blessing Way ritual, a thousand songs celebrate “place.” I owe them for some of the way I define my love of my homeland.

Imagine having a song for the crossing of the salt lakes east of Stanton, another song for swooping down the caprock into Penwell, and more songs for the forests of Midland Draw, or for the sanddunes of Monahans Draw, or the Allthorn savannah at the meeting of the forks of Johnson Draw. Intimate knowledge of landscape can be interwoven with the variety of human existence. Native American cosmogonies are based on centuries of interpretation of such subtle personal involvement with the landscape.

If there is time for digressions as we walk, there is also the time for fondling plants. This is the first moment of spring when a person must kneel and examine the changes carved by winter. Look close! Reach and feel the plant; bend the twig – does it snap? Or is there the limber springiness of new growth? Run your fingers up and down the stems. Are buds swelling at the nodes? Is there the tiniest bit of new growth peeking out? If the plant did not bloom very well last year, cut it back severely -- maybe even to the ground -- or at least to the crown. If it did bloom well, it can be divided, and the extra plants replanted or passed along to others.

Pass-along plants are a diverse lot. At least thirty species of these plants can be found in every town on the Llano Estacado, and few, if any, have ever been sold. Pass-along plants are symbols of the oral tradition. Bouncing Bet (known by the Latin generic Saponaria or Soapwort) has been handed from person to person since the time of the Pilgrims. It was brought on the Mayflower so hands, hair, and sweaty places could be clean. The first return ship to bring supplies to Cortez brought it to Mexico. The plants come with a story, often about a favored aunt or grandmother who brought the plant.

I have one patch of Saponaria under Afghan Pines, its leaves peeking through the deep pine straw. Oxalis and Ruellia join the Soapwort. I sprinkle compost on the naturally occurring mulch to increase the activity of the microorganisms of the nutrient cycle. The strength and speed of the leaves just emerging in response to the lengthening day is invigorating and encouraging. “Yes, I can succeed, I just must persevere! This little plant child lived despite drought, heat, wind, and six winter precipitation events. So can I, I just need to keep trying.”

The knees of my jeans are darkened with cold-mold stains, and on my forefinger knuckles there is brown crusty and scaly rough skin. A gardener wallows in the fecund mix of soil, decay, and fungus. Huge, misshapen russet puffballs can exert unbelievable “hydraulic” pressure as they surge aboveground. A mushroom is merely the fruiting body of the fungal organism, a brief sexual interlude. The rest of the time the hyphae of the mycelium wiggle through the soil converting death and excrement into nutrients for life. Fungi are the grandest recyclers. Some individual fungal organisms extend for several square miles. As more is learned, it may be found that every plant association has developed a symbiotic network that is hardwired by fungi.

The puffballs brought to mind the importance of fungal symbiosis as I recently helped dig and separate one of my favorite butterfly plants. The soil was luscious, delicious, full of wonderful rich odors. Every summer, Blue Mist Eupatorium brings dozens of Queen butterflies. Other species join them if the plant is in the sunlight, but Queens love dapple-shaded Blue Mist the best. They imbibe nectar until seemingly drunk, relaxed and unafraid of a passer-by. A person can run their hand along the plant and then induce a giant mahogany flutter-by to stand on a finger, and even on to another person’s nose. What fun!

Gone Native has a white variety of the plant as well. It is not found as easily in local nurseries, however. Blue Mist has appeared locally in the spring the last two years. We have heard rumors of a pink one as well. Blue Mist is very easy to propagate. Rachel of Midland College’s propagation class did 450 root cuttings from one two foot by one foot strip. Within a week the first roots appeared.

Blue Mist is native to the foothills of the Davis Mountains. On private land at the mouth of Madera Canyon amongst BeeBrush, Acacia, Lote, and other Chihuahuan scrub it is one of the wonders of the late summer green-up. Look for plants bearing the Latin name Eupatorium greggii, since other plants are also called Blue Mist.

The English name on a sign in a nursery is not the “true” or “only” name of a plant. Every locality names their most favorite plants, so many species have a dozen English names. Here in the southwest with centuries of Hispanic tradition, a dozen Spanish names are often used, as well. (And we should mention the forgotten names from the times when the Native Americans of the Llano Estacado were forced to become sedentary far, far away). Every little kid can remember the names of dinosaurs despite the words being from the old dead language of Latin. Latin teaches etymology, enriching our ability to savor our own language. Latin connects the people of Western Europe because it unites the languages of the Western Hemisphere.

Horticulture is culture, as much as the performing and literary arts are. Tend a garden, and tend your soul, and embellish your culture. Participate! Do! Take a walk! Become part of the dance of life – awaken from the torpor of winter, lulled into zombie-hood by the evil blue light of television. Seek action!