Happy Yards

by | Oct 2, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard, Wonderment

Take a look around as you drive. Autumn eye candy delights and soothes us.  From small yards to acreages to vistas Happy Yards abound. Following are some Happy Yards we’ve noticed this fall. We thank folks for creating visual pleasure, habitat for small creatures that share our earth, and enhancing the health of soil, water and air.

To respect individaul homeowner privacy, we took photos that show only the beauty of the forbs and grasses.  Businesses, we stated the names and we thank for their creative use of small spaces to enhance beauty and promote healthy environments.

Enjoy the eye candy as autumn progresses and may we look forward to more come next growing season.

Readers can connect with various businesses across the country that promote happy yards. A favorite is New Hampshire Garden Solutions that regularly post fabulous photos with narrative of rambles in Marion’s native state.

We’ve written a number of posts on wondrous yards that we invite readers to look at.

Maximillian Sunflowers – Summer’s Goodbye

by | Sep 18, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, 1080 Labyrinth Blog, Flowers/Grasses, Garden/Yard, Nature

Tall Maximillian Sunflowers dance in the breeze at Winding Pathways.

Dancing in autumn’s breezes.

An autumn pleasure is sitting on our front porch watching Maxmillian Sunflowers – Summer’s Goodbye wave as they dance in September’s breeze.

Our yard is a seasonal progression of color from spring’s delightful dandelions that grace our mowed yards to Maxmillion’s final wave. In early summer our porch view is of pale purple coneflowers that gradually yield to  common purple sunflowers. Then yellow coneflowers, purple prairie clover, compass plant and rattlesnake master make their appearance as  white clover looks like sprinkles on the lawn. We can tell the month by what’s blooming.

Autumn’s Hello

Fall’s a time for both joy and sadness. As summer’s warmth diminishes we know we won’t see our flowery color for months, but three blooms give us late summer gladness.

First comes the goldenrod of many species. We spot their earliest blooms on the final days of July but they come into full glory in late August and September. Then they’re joined by asters of several species. Our favorites are tiny flowered heath asters and deep lavender New England asters.  And the surprise pink petaled New England aster.

 Final Actor

The final actor to appear in the season’s progression of blooming color is the Maximilian Sunflower. Ours thrive in the south part of our labyrinth prairie and stretch higher than prairie grasses. Even a slight breeze entices their golden blooms to dance above the prairie as if to say, “thanks summer for your warmth and water.”

They are stalwart and resist early fall’s frosts and keep dancing. Their final bow of color  coincides with a hard freeze.

About Maximillian Sunflowers

Maximilian sunflowers are true sunflowers with many relatives. They are a perennial native to the Great Plains and tallgrass prairie, but people have planted them all over the world. Tall and vigorous, they make a delightful backdrop to a prairie or flower garden.

Supporting Actors

Bright Gold and Black feathers of the Goldfinch perched on a golden sunflower.

Goldfinches show up in the yard when various sunflowers bloom and turn to seed.

As a final delight our resident goldfinches love dining on any nutritious sunflower seeds. They start with cupplant and move on to Maximillian Sunflowers.

We delight that the blooms are exactly the same yellow hue as late summer male goldfinch feathers.

Brightening Autumn’s Days

Dancing sunflowers are a delight. Perhaps it’s sad that they herald an approaching winter, but they brighten fall’s gorgeous weather and lure us to sit on our porch

The Year of Crabgrass

by | Aug 7, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Garden/Yard

This must be the year of crabgrass! It seems to be everywhere, growing at lightning speed. But actually, every year is a crabgrass year.

After months of drought, July 2025 brought welcome and abundant rain to Iowa, along with heat and humidity. It’s not the type weather that we like but many plants disagree. They thrive in the muggy heat. Crabgrass in our vegetable gardens and flower beds is growing faster than we can rip it from the earth and toss it into our chicken run.

What’s in a name?

Fingers of Digitaria, crabgrass, spread on woodchips.

A fast grower

Botanists give it the name Digitaria for its many fast-spreading leaves that seem to shoot out from the center in a fingerlike radius. There are several species, but the one most common in our yard and beyond is hairy or large crabgrass, Digitaria sanguinalis.  

Where Did Crabgrass Come From?

It wasn’t always on the North American continent. The plant had been eaten by grazing farm animals in Europe for centuries. In early Europe, people harvested crabgrass seeds and used them as grain. It must have taken an enormous amount of patience and time to pick the tiny seeds, but it beat not eating at all! It was natural for immigrants to bring crabgrass with them when they came to North America.

Value of crabgrass

Crabgrass remains an important livestock forage feed, especially in early to mid-summer when it is green and tender. We pull it from our garden and toss it over the fence into the chicken run. Our hens love snacking on it.

Crabgrass is an annual. Each plant can produce upwards of 150,000 seeds in late summer. Some will sprout in next summer’s gardens and lawns. The plant is most successful growing in bare soil.

Pioneer Plant

Many people hate crabgrass, but is it all that bad? It’s a pioneer plant that establishes quickly to fill in bare spots in lawns. It’s a problem when it lives around tomato plants and between rows of beans. We don’t mind it in our lawn, as we simply buzz it off when mowing. Our lawn is blotchy due to the diversity of ground-hugging plants that live there. We never spray or water our lawns. That encourages plants that stay green despite poor soil and odd weather.

Keeping Crabgrass Out of a Lawn

Clover Lawn

Rich, deep clover lawns are charming and healthy.

We avoid herbicides and don’t mind if our lawn is blotchy due to its diversity of plant species. Crabgrass fills in bare spots and is challenged by healthy, thick, established vegetation. Anyone wanting to exclude it from a lawn should work to keep other plants healthy and continuous. We annually sprinkle white Dutch clover seed on bare patches. The plant’s dainty white mini snowball-shaped flowers attract pollinating insects as the plant enriches the soil. Usually, clover grows earlier in the year than crabgrass, so it reduces bare spots where the weedy grass needs to colonize.

Note: White Dutch clover is also an exotic nonnative plant, but it’s valuable because it puts nitrogen back in the soil. No need for sprays. 

 For more crabgrass information, check extension.umn.edu/weeds/crabgrass.

Our diverse lawn attracts butterflies, bumblebees, and cottontail rabbits. They are a joy to watch. If we used pesticides to produce a monoculture bluegrass lawn, we’d not be able to enjoy these wildlife visitors. Our lawn would be sterile, kids could not safely play on it, and we would be contributing to water pollution. In Iowa, the quality has degraded for decades.

Crabgrass is here. It’s not going away. We enjoy this fast-growing grass for its benefits while grudgingly tearing it from our garden soil.

 

Four Abundant and (some) Deadly Poisonous Plants

by | Jul 3, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Foraging, Garden/Yard, Pests

A Variation on “The Four Horsemen”

A quartet of deadly and toxic plants lurks along trails and riverbanks in Iowa and some across much of the world. They are Poison Hemlock, Poison Ivy, Flowering Spurge, and Wild Four O’clock.

Poison Hemlock

We’ll start with Poison Hemlock. Socrates wasn’t the only person killed by it. The Greeks once used to execute criminals.

Poison hemlock isn’t related to the majestic hemlock tree. Rather, it’s a biennial herbaceous plant. In its second year it quickly shoots up to tower upwards of eight feet tall. In Iowa it prefers living in dappled sunlight where the soil is moist. That describes the land bisected by public trails paralleling rivers and streams—places where people go to recreate.

It’s deadly poisonous, but only when ingested. Walking or cycling by it creates no problem at all. But it’s wise to know about this potentially deadly plant. All parts of it are toxic to people and animals when ingested. Even dried, wintery stems are poisonous.

By early June, the tall green plants with feathery leaves begin bearing white clusters of flowers. Their prettiness is deadly.

Poison hemlock could be confused with Queen Anne’s Lace that’s sometimes called wild carrot. Poison hemlock also often lives near wild parsnips. This plant is also toxic, in a different way. It can create a vicious rash in people who rub against it with bare skin and then are exposed to sunlight.

Where Poison Hemlock Originated

Poison Hemlock is native to Europe and is especially common around the Mediterranean Sea. It was introduced to the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, and Asia, so today, it is a toxic invasive species worldwide.

The Internet and YouTube are loaded with sites describing this plant. A good quick read comes from the National Park Service at nps.gov/articles/poison-hemlock.htm.

Other Troublesome Plants

Unfortunately, several other deadly and toxic plants often live in the same places as poison hemlock. Here are a few.

  • Poison ivy often lines trails. It prefers living on the edge of woodlands where it gets some shade and sun. Unlike poison hemlock, poison ivy is a native plant that causes a contact reaction. That means if human skin brushes against it a nasty itchy rash can follow. And, if a pet wanders through the poison ivy and then comes inside where a human pats it, guess what? The irritating oils are transferred and the human gets a nasty rash. A friend of our discovered this earlier this year. Also, state parks are notorious for having poison ivy growing where people contact it – along unkempt trails and winding up trees in campgrounds even. Rabbits and deer eat it and birds eat and spread the seeds.

 

Flowering spurge has tiny white blossoms and a milky sap that irritates the skin.

Pretty and irritating

Flowering spurge is also common along trails. Cut the plant and get some of its sap on skin and a nasty welt is likely to result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild four O'clock growing along a sidewalk

Unattended areas attract undesirable plants.

Wild Four O’clock also loves trail edges and is reported to be toxic.

None of these plants cause problems unless they are eaten or contact the skin.  They won’t cause a problem for anyone just walking by

 

 

 

Be careful. Keep your distance.

Naturalized Yards and Weed Ordinances

by | Jun 19, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard

Years ago, anyone attempting to create a diverse, native landscape in their yard sometimes experienced weed ordinance woes. Their local ‘weed commissioner” would order them to mow their “messy” yard.

Towns created ordinances to give them the authority to force landowners to remove what was perceived to be health or safety hazards. But, they were sometimes used to enforce conformity to the standard of neatly mowed, sprayed, monoculture lawns promoted by lawn product and care companies.

Cities do need the authority to deal with situations where landowners simply neglect their yards by not mowing, but they should not be able to use ordinances to enforce an aesthetic standard.

Changing Times – Responding to Declining Pollinator Populations

These days, homeowners everywhere recognize the importance of diversity. They are creating diverse landscapes of native plants even in tiny yards. Towns are responding by altering restrictive ordinances to allow the restoration of beautiful vegetation that supports beneficial wildlife, including pollinators.

Anyone who plans to diversify their yard in a way that makes it look different from their neighbors’ runs a risk of running afoul of their local town’s ordinance.

 Guidelines To Reduce Neighbor or Municipal Friction.

  • Research your town’s weed ordinance. Often, it’s printed on the town’s website.
  • Develop a written plan and diagram of what the yard will become. It doesn’t need to be fancy or detailed.
  • Cultivate and educate neighbors. Even towns that have old-fashioned ordinances rarely go out of their way to enforce them. Enforcement is triggered by complaints, usually from neighbors. Sharing a yard’s plan with neighbors before the change takes place may help them understand that what you are doing isn’t neglect.
  • Start small. Maybe just replace a corner of a yard with prairie the first year and expand it gradually as the years go by.
  • Make the yard look tended and not neglected. This can mean mowing pathways through tall grass, maintaining some lawns, and often being seen tending the yard tending the landscape.
  • Avoid health or safety hazards. Avoid planting taller vegetation that will block a driver’s vision at intersections. Don’t allow allergens like poison ivy or ragweed to grow.
  • Hiring a knowledgeable professional yard care company to plan and implement diversity.

Results

Restoring a gorgeous landscape of native vegetation is a delightful project that makes our world a bit healthier. Doing so is easier if it doesn’t irritate neighbors or invoke a stern town ordinance.

This first appeared on the Sustainable Landscape Solutions Website at sustainable landscape solutions.org. The company is based in Iowa City, Iowa, and helps landowners create wondrous yards.  

May’s Ten Best Days

by | May 1, 2025 | Birds, Flowers/Grasses, Nature

A woodland stroll is outstanding in any season but is best during May’s first ten days.  We always marvel at nature’s fleeting changes that happen swiftly.

Why Early May

Late April and early May are when ephemeral flowers revel in their time in the sun. That long word “ephemeral” means a short time. There’s a brief time in late April through about mid-May when the air and soil are warm but trees haven’t yet leafed out. So, sunlight streams through still naked branches to reach the ground.

Bloodroot, trout lily, anemone, Dutchman’s breeches, ginger, trillium, and May apples, among many of the woodland flowers, take advantage of this window of sunshine. They grow amazingly fast, bloom for a short time, and then seem to disappear for the rest of the year. They are there but hard to see and not in bloom during summer’s heat and winter’s chill.

Other Delights

Enjoying wildflowers is only one of early May’s woodland delights. Another is birds.

Many of them are, like wildflowers, ephemeral but in a different way. They are migrants en route from points way south to breeding areas up north. For only a few days, often in early May, they linger to feed, rest, and sing before continuing their journey.

We always look forward to seeing migrating birds on their way north and others that come north to nest near our home. Flowers are easy to find. They can’t hide. Birds can, and often many fascinating birds are hard to spot but easy to hear as they sing in what seems like springtime joy.

Modern Technology Helps

Identifying flower and bird species is a fun activity that modern technology has made relatively simple. We use phone apps to help identify plants and birds. Many are free.

Plants: SEEK is amazing. SEEK is part of an electronic world called iNaturalist. It works for many domestic plants as well as wild ones. Load the app, open it when encountering an unknown plant, take a photo, and SEEK can usually accurately identify it.

 

Birds:  We love the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology’s Merlin Bird ID app. It includes a sound identification tool. So, when we’re in the woods, prairie or marsh and we hear birdsong we can’t identify, we turn on Merlin and select the sound feature.  It identifies what’s singing. Merlin also includes photos and information on each species.

 

We hope you take in the annual show. Early May is the best time to be outside. Enjoy and remember.