Grass is greener
Growing native prairie grasses may
help push them off the endangered species list
Story by Erica Simmonds
The grass grew four feet tall in Ann Gerry’s garden, but that’s just the way she likes it.
Three years ago, Gerry pulled out most of her Kentucky bluegrass (what most
lawns consist of) and planted native prairie grasses and flowers in its place. "It
looked beautiful," says Gerry, a terrestrial ecologist with Saskatchewan
Environment and board member of the Native Plant Society of Saskatchewan, who
lives in Lumsden, just outside of Regina. "But I’m sure some of my
neighbours were puzzled."
Native prairie grasses are endangered, so growing them contributes to their
conservation — what Garth Wruck, coordinator of the Native Plant Society
and plant ecologist, calls "backyard conservation." Wruck says native
grasses are symbolic of Canadian culture and heritage. "There is a historical
link, since they are plants that were here before the Europeans."
But native grasses are not readily available to gardeners. To find the seeds,
Wruck advises contacting a conservation organization or searching on the Internet
(see below for sites). "There’s a huge demand for [native grasses]
from the public. It’s such a new thing that the garden centres and greenhouses
have kind of avoided it," he says.
Gardeners may be disinclined to plant native grasses because many are shabby
and weed-like, says Peter Odynski, a horticulturist at the Devonian Botanic Garden
at the University of Alberta. Rice and June grasses are among some of the nicer
ones, he says, but "generally, grasses don’t show much interest to
your average gardener," adding, "Of course, beauty is in the eye of
the beholder." One of Gerry’s favourites is the blue grama grass: "It’s
a shorter grass, but the leaves are curly and the flowering head looks like a
curling eyelash."
Wruck’s organization is trying to educate people within the horticulture
industry about mass-producing native grasses. The grasses require less work because
they have adapted to the local climate after growing in the wild for thousands
of years. Gerry watered her grasses the first year but found that she only needed
to water them once the second year. Gardening with native grasses, however, requires
patience. They haven’t been bred for constant germination, Wruck says,
and a gardener might have to wait up to three years for seeds to sprout.
Gardening with native grasses is also good for the environment, says Gerry,
as gardeners don’t have to worry about introducing exotic species to their
regions. Wruck says a lot of the weed problems we have come from invasive European
plants, such as purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria). This former garden plant
has now replaced native — and some endangered — plants in the wild.
As a result, the Canadian government approved the release of thousands of beetles
that eat purple loosestrife to help eradicate the problem.
While native grasses grow in most parts of Canada, they are the dominant vegetation
in the prairies. There are about 70 types, including one to three COSEWIC (Committee
on the Status on Endangered Wildlife in Canada) species that are considered at
risk. Of the three types of prairie grasses, only a fraction one percent of tall-grass
prairies remain, less than 24 percent of mixed-grass prairies are intact, and
less than five percent of the fescue prairie grasses.
As for Gerry, she recently moved and is trying to decide what species of grasses
to plant in her new garden. The four-foot grasses she had so much satisfaction
watching grow are in someone else’s hands now.
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