Louise Englestad draws her inspiration for her garden not from flower catalogs, garden centers or commercial greenhouses, but from her walks through the Black Hills and the prairie that surrounds it.
Four seasons ago, Englestad began a prairie restoration project in her backyard about a year after she graduated as a master gardener.
"I started with the goal of establishing a wildlife habitat," she said.
Through observation, research and her network of gardening friends, she began her journey in removing typical plants found in flower beds across America and replacing them with the flora and plants native to the plains and Black Hills.
"It's my first experiment, and it's doing quite well," she said.
Englestad will share her prairie findings and gardening tips Thursday, April 24, at a presentation, "Growing Perennials and Native Plants." It's part of the Thursday Growing with the Masters series hosted by South Dakota State University/Pennington County Extension Service and the Master Gardeners. For information, call 394-2188.
To begin creating an ecosystem, Englestad planted an aspen tree and a dogwood tree and put in a service berry bush on the shady and wet side of her home, because the plants thrive in that sort of environment. But these plants also provide food and nests for a variety of birds and other animals - even during the winter months.
"Critters need something all year long for food and shelter," she said.
In 2004, she ripped out the Kentucky bluegrass on one side of the house and put in buffalo grass. "I'm lucky that my neighbors love this," she said.
She has purchased seeds and gathered them from plants that have gone to seed, planted them and then waited.
"You have to be patient because they spend a couple years putting their roots down," she said of the wild plants. When Englestad pulled up her bluegrass lawn, the root system was only three inches. "Buffalo grass roots can grow 15 feet deep," she said.
"I don't spray anything. I establish these plant communities that look after each other. They make an ecological system," she said.
Along with the trees and bushes are grasses such as blue stem, switch grass, wild oats, prairie drop seed, sage and milkweed. Swamp milkweed is a particular favorite of Monarch butterflies, which lay their eggs on the plant. As the larvae develop into caterpillars, their voracious appetites will strip all of the milkweed's leaves before they begin to build their chrysalis.
These types of gardens establish a year-round food table for insects, birds and larger critters. She also has a pond in the yard to provide water as well as food and shelter for her habitat. These beautiful grasses change colors just like the leaves in fall, she said.
"If you go in the Hills, you have to stop and really look at things. I try to reconstruct that when I come home. It's a little different philosophy," she said.
Native plants
For information about native plains gardening, seed exchanges or field trips, contact Cindy Reed at the Great Plains Native Plant Society at 745-3397, info@gpnps.org, www.GPNPS.org or P.O. Box 461, Hot Springs, SD 57747.
