native prairie restoration

many of our regional parks have begun doing native prairie restoration. it’s a terrific trend. the prairies of the midwest are some of the most fertile and productive soils anywhere in the world. this handful of flowers was gathered in a matter of minutes, and then laid out on white paper beside my parked car. if i had waited until i got back home, the would have been too wilted to photograph. it’s an interesting thing about wildflowers, in contract to hothouse cultivars, that they wilt immediately upon picking. their roots are sometimes as much as a meter deep, but the instant they are cut off from that life-giving web, they being to go limp. both incredibly resilient. and incredibly fragile. two simultaneous and contradictory truths.

july prairie wildflowers