This is the same view of the newly-planted prairie that I first posted last November. The weather has been wet and today was the first day in awhile that I could get out here. Not much to see, I guess, since so much of the exciting stuff requires a much closer look. But annual plants are up and running. The light green stuff with thin leaves is mostly clarkia and Epilobium brachycarpum. I didn't plant the Epilobium, but it's a native annual that shows up here when the soil is disturbed. There is quite a lot of it in the southern part of the prairie. Like Spring whitlow grass (Draba verna, which some say is native and others not, but it's a sweet little plant anyway), it fills in a disturbed area, sheds its seeds and then goes away as other stuff fills in, but is always there waiting for a chance. The wider-bladed plants are mostly prickly lettuce and mustard, and I will soon be spot-spraying those little delights with 2-4-D.

Elsewhere in the prairie, there are more spectacular results these days. Native deliphinium is in bloom...
And I was thrilled to find a vigorous Shooting star (Dodecatheon conjugens) in the shade of a Ponderosa pine in the southwest part of the prairie. This little flower had been putting out leaves for two years before it suddenly bloomed last week.