Perennial Blog

Publishen on September 13, 2017 on www.czechgardener.com

Hallo Hoosier gardeners, plant enthusiasts and nature lovers!

Today it will be just short report about one great day.

Nature Daze Day (organized by Brown County Native Woodland Project, http://www.bcnwp.com ) brought chance to visit Brown County for the first time…. Chilly morning turned into beautiful sunny day, breathtaking hills and woodlands all around, similar thinking “hippie” people, great topics of the speakers and peaceful and enhancing afternoon at my friend’ s cabin.

Invasive species topic deserves special post on the blog, but it is obviously big theme here. Will Drews described perfectly the most problematic species and new ones that just started to spread, Kris Medic offered native shrubs and trees proven in the landscape designs and worth using more (great, some of them are really unknown for me). I was’ t that interested into snakes, but it’ s good to hear where you can meet venomous snakes here while strolling in the wilderness, Patrick Haulter did his job very well!

Will Drews - invasive species in Indiana  /  Torrie Rae - Seed Brown County

Chris Medic - native trees in landscaping  /  Useful books about permaculture

It is really funny, that you can find similar thinking people in every country, lots of visitors of the Daze reminded me of members and friends of our Czech “Natural Garden Society” ( http://www.prirodnizahrada.com/ ) and it made me feel home and safe, how nice. Torrie Rae, permaculturalist, sustainability lecturer and seed enthusiast was just one of them ( http://www.seedbrowncounty.org/ )

Plant sale wasn’ t huge, but it’ s always nice to buy some native plants. I guess most of the plants were sold at the end of the day (plants were donated by Eco Logic, great way of support). We bought Asclepias exaltata (Poke Milkweed), Aster oblongifolius (Aromatic Aster), Penstemon calycosus (Calico Beardtongue) and Physocarpus opulifous. Asclepias and Penstemon are already planted along the house, Aster and Physocarpus are waiting...

Native perennials and shrubs support by Ecologic Indina  /  Everything can be composted, good!

Wonderful and inspiring day at Camp Rancho Framasa continued with visiting Ruth Ann Ingraham’s cabin on one of the ridges in Brown county. How peaceful place, modest in colors, all natural looking, hidden in the tall prairie meadow, among pines and variety of grown native trees at the back. 

Magical woodland cabin with woodland and prairie garden

Aster novae-angliae (New England Aster)  / Echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower)

 My first Pycnanthemum muticum (?)  / Prairie among the pines

Picture above - Sorghastrum nutans (Indian Steel Grass)

One of the facts I really admire here is the possibility and availability to build up house or cabin right to the woodland. I haven’ t seen so many houses built among big trees like here in Indiana it seems to be pretty common here (of course you can see smaller huts in the trees in the Czech republic, but here is the connection between human and trees much more obvious and I just love it). And I just can’ t describe those feelings, when you’ re inside the house and you have woodland with big trees all around you, just WOW! 

Ruth is charming lady and I know her since 2014, we spend such a great times chatting…for those who don’ t know her, she is one of the founders of INPAWS ( http://www.inpaws.org/ ) and also writer. I had to admit that I was a bit embarrassed when she asked me about her book “Swimming with Frogs” (which was a gift in 2014 and I haven’ t read it yet…). It was great reminder, the book just fills the gaps in the mosaic of her and her garden, natural discoveries of Brown County, natural gardening. So I immediately pulled the book out of the library and this will be very next book to read. Thank you Ruth!

P.S. Plus this reminded me of another book I have to read : Wolf-Dieter Storl – I’m Part of the Woodlands (unfortunately not translated into English yet, http://english.storl.de/publications/books/ )