Violin microphone shoot-out!

For years, my go-to microphone for recording my violin (or anyone else's) in the studio has been a Cascade Microphones Fathead II ribbon microphone with a factory-added Lundahl transformer, run through an Avalon 737 tube preamp. Using a ribbon mic live is impractical for two reasons--its pick-up pattern is a figure-8, and they are too fragile for the stage.  So, for live sound reinforcement, I have used an old favorite, a Sennheiser 421 dynamic mic.  The last few times I've played for dances, I've noticed that he Sennheiser is a little scratchy-nasty in the high end, so I have been wondering if there was another option with the warmth of the ribbon mic.  I kept seeing singers using a microphone I had associated with broadcasters--the venerable Shure SM7B, and the warm, smooth sound haunted me--that is exactly what you want for a violin when you are close-miking live, because a violin makes weird scratchy bow sounds that are right there by the instrument, but not audible from ten feet away.  Somehow, the ribbon mic eliminates the bow noise, and I wondered if the SM7B would do the same.  I have not seen/heard anyone using an SM7B for violin, or any other acoustic stringed instrument, in fact.  If not for the pandemic, I would have booked time in a studio that had one, so I could try it out, but... not possible.  So, I took the leap and I just bought one, along with a Cloudlifter CL-1, which is a gizmo that takes phantom power from your preamp, and hijacks it to add 25dB of clean gain to the signal.  So here are the microphones...

From left to right... 

Audio-Technica AT4050 (the windscreen is moved off behind the mic), running into an Avalon 737 tube preamp.  This is my standard set up for a singer, and I thought it would make a good comparison to the other microphones.

Sennheiser 421, running into a channel of my True Systems Precision 8 preamp.  This is something like my usual live sound violin setup.

Shure SM7B, running through a Cloudlifter CL-1, into a channel of my Precision 8.  I did not roll off the bass, nor juice the "presence" setting--I am running it flat.

Cascade Fathead II, running into an Avalon 737.

So, what I did was record a couple of tunes onto four separate tracks, "Hector the Hero" is an air composed by Scottish fiddle legend J. Scott Skinner, and is played in Donegal (N. Ireland), and I decided to pair it with a jig from Donegal, "Hardiman's Fancy." To compare the microphones, I edited a single track (with just a bit of reverb), switching off between the microphones, at regular intervals.  The tunes are in two parts, and so on "Hector the Hero," I only played it once, so I divided each section in half, and switched at that point.  With the jig, I played through twice and switched on each part.  Here are the specific timings...

Hector the Hero

A1/first half--0:00-0:14/S421  A1/second half--0:14-0:27/FatheadII  

A2/first half--0:28-0:41/AT4050   A2/second half--0:41-0:54/SM7B

B1/first half--0:54-1:09/S421  B1/second half--1:09-1:22/FatheadII  

B2/first half--1:22-1:36/AT4050   B2/second half--1:37-1:52/SM7B

Hardiman's Fancy 

A1--1:52-2:02/SM7B     A2--2:02-2:12/S421    

B1--2:12-2:21/Fathead   B2--2:21-2:30/AT4050

A1--2:30-2:39/SM7B     A2--2:39-2:48/S421    

B1--2:48-2:57/Fathead   B2--2:58-3:09/AT4050

And here is the recording.   https://palouserivermusic.com/single/46501/microphone-comparison-for-close-miking-violin

If you want to download it for some reason, you can do that free from that page...

CONCLUSION

You will make your own conclusions, of course, but here are mine.  I am thrilled by the sound of the SM7B--I think it wins the comparison, hands-down.  I expected it to be better than the Sennheiser, which does indeed sound a little scratchy and dull in comparison here, but I didn't expect it to be the best of the bunch.  The 4050 was better with the violin than I expected, but I suspect that has to do with the Avalon preamp, which helps to make it more luscious.  The Fathead was interesting--it is getting the cushy Avalon ride that I gave the 4050, but I noticed, in this close-miking arrangement, that it picked up the little thumps of my fingers hitting the fingerboard more than the other mics.  In a real recording I would eliminate that by placement or EQ, but I noticed the problem more in the Fathead than the others.  It is fine, but... the SM7B is superior, in my opinion.

Of course, this sets up an experiment I didn't yet do--SM7B into the Cloudlifter...and then into the Avalon preamp.  Really, my point here was to see how the SM7B would do live, and so the squeaky-clean solid-state Precision 8 was the best test for a live sound, but next time I record the violin for to make a real recording, I will have to hear the SM7B through the Avalon.  That it compared so well with the Fathead in this setting bodes well.  And I should try the Cloudlifter on the Fathead, too.  

A year of flowers #73: Jessica's aster

 

Symphyotrichum jessicae

 

Well, I thought the show was all over for the year (which is why I did a weed post), but I was wrong!  I had thrown a five-gallon bucket of water at my Jessica's asters about a month ago, and then we had a couple of minor rainstorms, and I was out in that part of the prairie last week, and darned if they weren't blooming!  This is another plant whose scientific name appears to have changed.  Once known as Aster jessicae, apparently it is now Symphyotrichum jessicae. 

 

This is a rare species, native only to the Palouse region, in Washington and Idaho.  My two monster examples came from the annual Idaho Native Plant Society sale several years ago, and they obviously like it here.

 

And now, a weed... Prickly lettuce

Lactuca serriola  

...from down the road, fortunately NOT on our property!

 

This is my current nemesis in the prairie restoration--Lactuca serriola, aka "Prickly lettuce." The really bad stuff out there is gone--no more field bindweed, Canada thistle, poison hemlock...but Prickly lettuce is formidable. It was pervasive when I moved here, with many years of spreading seeds, of which there are many in every plant, as you can see above.  As I have battled it, I have learned of its extraordinary powers, but now I seem to have gained the upper hand.  

One of its weapons is persistence.  Here on the WA/ID border, they start sprouting in April (though some that sprout in fall will winter over and can start growing by March), and will continue through the Spring.  If you clear all of the plants in, say, late June, the sprouting throughout July and into August will get you.  In a serious infestation, seedlings will begin to sprout after the first few rains in fall.  I was just at my dentist's office yesterday, and we got to talking about the weeds (between cleaning and suction... usually the conversations are pretty one-sided). He was saying that after the little spray of rain we had the other day, he was seeing little seedlings of Prickly lettuce seem to spring up, bloom, and go to seed in one day.  Still, they all do at least mostly bloom at the same time, July into August.

 

As with many aspects of this project, my process was trial-and-mostly-error.  I did discover that if you have a substantial patch of it, mowing can be effective just as they start to bloom.  Many will survive, but if it's during a hot dry period, some will give up the ghost, and you get rid of a lot of future seeds.  Similarly, in the years where they just got past me, I cut down a standard hoe for a shorter handle (better for whacking), sharpened the blade and would hack off as many flowering/seeding heads as I could.  The trick was to strike so that the blade would encounter the plant down into the root a bit--often I'd get enough of the root to take it out.  While doing this with a perennial weed like bindweed would be pointless, I found that, like mowing, I could get Prickly lettuce seeds out of the system, and some plants would eventually quit trying.  Unless you have a small area to work, or you are crazed, this method will not work to eradicate Lactuca serriola.

You know what's coming, right?  

Yep, as I have mentioned in these posts before, I am not above using herbicide.  I understand that some people are horrified by this, but there is no prairie restoration without it, and as I have seen here, there is no. consequence. whatsoever. from its use in this project.  I have used glyphosate and 2,4-D, and they really work to get rid of invasive noxious weeds I couldn't have eliminated otherwise.  Here, I must recognize the guidance of my awesome father-in-law, Frank Abderhalden, retired farmer of 250 acres of spectacular farmland beside the Willamette River near St. Paul, OR, who walked through the prairie with me for the first time in 2006, and said in a way I wish that you could hear--"So, are you serious about this?  Would you like my advice?" Yes, I wanted his advice.

"You have to be willing to use herbicide."  OK.

I adjusted my schedule for the difference between the wet climate of the Willamette Valley and the drier and colder Palouse region, but in late May/early June, after some rain, I walked through the prairie, spraying every Prickly lettuce I saw with 2,4-D.  Any living Lactuca at that point will be toast.  Ideally, I had native grass growing in that area, and so the 2,4-D would not disturb it.  This is the most profound effort by this plant, and 2/3 of your problem will be gone.  The next important time to go through was around the first week of July, hoping for summer rain we would often get, and spraying a day or so afterwards.  This would be the last time I could use herbicide until fall.  In this instance, I would use what I called "kill juice"--OK, yell at me, but... whatever. "Kill juice" is mixing as much glyphosate as would be appropriate for that much water, and then mixing 2,4-D into that same liquid, appropriate for that much water.  It is very effective, and used in spot spraying applications.  In fact, the bindweed, poison hemlock, and Canada thistle I mentioned earlier?  That takes it out.  With the glyphosate, it will also take out grass, so into those spots where I had grass, I would again use pure 2,4-D.  I should say that this method is also how I rid myself of another similarly-invasive weed, Salsify (except for the odd one blowing in from the neighbors).  Salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius) was easier because it doesn't have as much of a long period where the plants will sprout. 

This will eliminate 80%-90% of the Prickly lettuce, but the 10%-20% of it remaining will ruin everything.  One single plant, unmolested, can spread (hundreds? thousands?) of seeds--each one of those little pods that were flowers you can see in those plants above is loaded with a bunch of tiny seeds.  It will--this is the years of trial-and-(mainly) error talking here. So, then comes the bucket-and-shovel.  Now, I know some people around me here want to be organic about things, and OK, I do the same in my vegetable garden.  A small space can be cleared (not of field bindweed, poison hemlock, or Canada thistle, but...) through this ritual of physical control, but the weird thing is that I have never seen my neighbors using the classic dig-the-actual-weeds method.  But I start up in July, and keep going.  I have a five-gallon bucket, and I go out in the mornings before it gets too hot (I have been thwarted by smoky conditions as well... sigh...)--I discovered that blooming Prickly lettuce closes up its flowers in the middle of the day--if you go in the morning, the pale yellow flowers of blooming Lactuca will tell you where they are.  This is important.  Some years I have dug more than 75 gallons of weeds in this way.

I take my little shovel (I had a cool Army-surplus trench-digger from my ancient boy scout days that did a great job until the blade cracked through), and dig right alongside the Prickly lettuce plant in question, pop the dirt sideways as my gloved hand gently pulls the plant stem, and it nearly always pops out with enough roots to take care of business.  Into the bucket, and from there to the burn pile.  In early July, the plants are not that resourceful, and I can break off the top blooming part to put in the bucket, and drop the roots, lower stem, and leaves as compost on the ground.  By the end of July, you can see the blooms/buds popping out of the leaves all the way up the plant, and you've got to put the whole thing in the bucket.  Now in mid-August, the plants come up blooming and you have to get all of it in a hurry.  It has been so hot and smoky here that on the rare days I can get out there, I've got to go.  Weirdly, in this smoky drought, I think that many of these plants gave up on the future and sprouted earlier than they normally would have, and thus... I have cleared them.  In this bizarre time, I have to say that I'm optimistic.  For the first time I've gotten ahead of them, and most of the prairie is completely free of weeds.  I still go out most days, but there are less and less of them in a few areas that had been impossible for years, but now...  I get my five-gallon bucket maybe a third full. 

So, the next step may not be necessary this year, but in the past, after the first rains (October), I would go through and spot-spray any Lactuca that sprout with the notorious kill-juice, or I would use pure 2,4-D where there was grass, or plain glyphosate where I was preparing ground to plant native grass seed.  I think this year there will be so few that I can walk through with the bucket and shovel in late October and get the few that show up, from seed that blew in and sprouted.  It has been a few years, but satisfying to know you can get there.  

That's the method.  Good luck!

 

 

 

A year of flowers #72: Autumn willowherb

 

 

Epilobium brachycarpum

 

This is probably the last of the year of flowers, but it has been a strange year, so who knows...?  I never planted it, but it's everywhere out there, and this is another plant that I couldn't ever get rid of even if I wanted to, so I was delighted to find out that it is indeed native.  I have recognized that it does a good job keeping the other noxious-weed seeds floating in the air from alighting and sprouting.  In August, it begins producing a pink cloud out there, hovering at about 3-4 feet above the ground, and this year seems to be utterly undaunted by the drought and heat.  

 

I just read an article describing methods for eradicating it, and it was interesting to read about how difficult it is to eliminate it.  I guess it is a noxious weed in a lot of places, but not here.  I suspect that annual plants like this do a lot to provide structure and biomass for the soil, and this one certainly provides a lot beauty out there at a time when other things are drying up. 

A year of flowers #71: Missouri goldenrod

 

Solidago missouriensis

This is the other goldenrod species in our area, more common than the earlier-blooming S. canadensis.  This is another vigorous species like yarrow that is very easy to grow here.  My first plants came from seed I got from a local native plant legend, Dave Skinner, who was the USDA native plant guy at WSU.  He passed away a few years ago, but his influence is still very much with us, because he did a lot to inspire people around here to grow native plants, and he did a lot of research to discover effective methods for propagating local native plants.  

 

I don't remember how I found this website, but I enthusiastically recommend it, if you are interested in propagating native plants.  https://npn.rngr.net/propagation/protocols?

If you use the pull-down menu for "Genus (species)" you can find studies related to the propagation of whatever plant you've chosen.  For every Palouse prairie plant I have wanted to study in this resource, the best propagation information here is invariably from Dave Skinner's work at WSU.

A year of flowers #70: Western aster

 

Aster occidentalis

Western asters were an early success for me.  I collected seed down by the river in the late 90's and grew a bunch of them in pots, and then planted them in the middle of what became the prairie.  They loved it here.

In fact they spread enthusiastically through the northern part of the property, and Dona expressed alarm at their vigor.  They were not unlike yarrow, Missouri goldenrod, and Spring willow-herb (those last two are still to be chronicled, herein), in that they were, well, invasive.  But ultimately, this wasn't a problem.  They first produced huge versions of themselves over a large area, and then have gradually gotten smaller, thickened, and established themselves in a cooperative role out there.  Even in this difficult year, you can see that the asters are fine.  

It is very smoky and hot here now, and so I haven't gone out for a few days, but I just came in from walking through, and I am delighted to see that I seem to have eliminated Prickly lettuce and Salsify from most of the property.  In the past I would go out in early August and see a new population coming up, but my suspicion that the heat and drought inspired these opportunistic plants to go early, and I was able to get them. Now, it's dry as a bone out there, and I hope those natives come back, but... no weeds.  It has been a long time to get to this point.  

 

A year of flowers #69: Douglas' knotweed

 

Polygonum douglasii

It turns out to be very difficult to get a photo of this flower, because it's so tiny that the camera assumes I must be trying to photograph something else.  I don't know what I did to get it to focus this once, but I'd better declare victory and post it.  This is another plant that just showed up, that I suspected (correctly) was a native.  

I have been writing about our weird drought and epic "heat bubble," and it has been interesting to just let things go out there, and we'll see what survives.  Another flower that I won't be able to post is the Jessica's asters--I have a couple of monster plants, but no blooms this year.  I threw some water at them but they don't seem to be interested.  Maybe they'll do something.  Still, many plants are proceeding as though it's just another year, a bit drier and hotter but... fine... Here are next year's Scarlet gilia that seem not to be perturbed by the conditions.

 

In fact, overall, the prairie is certainly dry, but it looks OK.  It's just August out there several weeks early...

A year of flowers #68: Snowberry

Symphoricarpos albus

Actual snowberries are white (hence the name), but the bloom is this lovely pink.  They were on the property when I came here in 1991, among the native roses in the north fence row, and in a clump next to the front porch.  We decided to plant something more civilized in that spot beside the porch (Clematis got the nod), and we dug up every chunk of snowberry out of that location, planting anything that had hairy roots attached.  There was a LOT, but we dug up all of it, and even got the stragglers the next year, moving it out to various spots in the prairie where it has thrived and is welcome to spread, which is good because, like the Wood's rose, they definitely like to spread. 

A year of flowers #67: Canada goldenrod

   

Solidago canadensis

Canada goldenrod was an early success for me in the prairie.  I bought the original plant from a guy selling natives at the Moscow Farmers' Market in the 90s, and it has grown over the years into a substantial patch, though its seeds have not inspired any offspring elsewhere, unlike the Missouri goldenrod here (which is just starting to bloom).  This early and epic heat and drought continues to batter newer plants that I sure hope come back, but established plants are doing great.  The Ponderosa pines, with their roots down on the water table (we aren't far from bedrock here) are going nuts--they seem to be growing as I watch.  And of course, the tomatoes in the vegetable garden are having a party.  But the younger plants are backing off, and it will be interesting to see how things go next year.

A year of flowers #65 & #66: Fool's onion and Sugar bowls

 

Triteleia hyacinthina

 

Clematis hirsutissima

 

Over the last few posts, I have been singing a lament over our historic heat wave.  One of those paintbrushes, about which I was recently so proud, has shriveled up, brown... A heartleaf arnica plant that had made a comeback this year (but it hasn't bloomed yet, so I didn't include it in my posts), something chomped it and the remainder went brown.  I am hopeful that these plants have just decided to sit this one out and try again next year.  We'll see.  I was watering every few weeks until now, but I think I need to let things be.

The two flowers shown here are photographs that I took about this time last year.  This year the plants themselves are doing fine, nice and green, but they did not deliver their blooms this year.  I assume it is because of the bizarre weather.  The Triteleia was a gift, probably from the birds, showing up years ago underneath a young pine tree.  For years I would only see the leaves and then three years ago, I had a bloom!  Quite a few bloomed last year in that spot.  My native-plant book does not show this growing in Whitman County, but here it is.  If you compare it to the other Triteleia I posted, you can see the resemblance--palouserivermusic.douglasbrodiaea Also, if you compare it to native alliums, you can see how it got its common name--Fool's onion.  palouserivermusic.tapertiponion

The Clematis was a rescue.  My friend Diane called me four years ago, having seen this plant growing in the gravel beside the road.  No other natives nearby--just wheat.  How this plant was able to eke out an existence there is a mystery.  A crew was grating the road, and we got the plant out not long before everything in that area was ripped out of the ground by the equipment.  The clump split into two plants and both are doing fine.  But no blooms this year.

A year of flowers #64: Fireweed

 

 

Chamerion angustifolium

 

I have been watching the blooms unfold on my fireweed for several days now, taking a photo every day, and waiting to see when the heat-wave-death-bubble will at last leave us alone.  It mostly has moved on, but plants are suffering.  It appears to me to look like mid-July out there now, and a lot of plants have wilted.  Today, though a few more buds have opened up, the bloom was starting to wilt from the bottom, so yesterday's shot will have to do.  I have two vigorous fireweed plants next to each other here.  One came from my neighbors down the road, and the other from my friend Charlotte.

A year of flowers #63: Oregon checkermallow

 

Sidalcea oregana

We are in the midst of a weirdly-epic heat wave here in the Northwest.  Today is supposed to get up to 107º, which is not the sort of temperature we are used to seeing around here in late June.  Honestly, 107º is unusual for August.  I notice that some flowers are thrilled by the heat (the Scarlet gilia is exploding out there), but others, like this Oregon checkermallow, are wilting a bit.  This plant has been very successful here, though.  I bought a couple of small plants in 2014, as well as some seed, and they've seemed very happy here.  But today?--not so much.

A year of flowers #62: Grand collomia

   

Collomia grandiflora

This is an annual flower, native to most of the Pacific Northwest. Jim Roberts first alerted me to it, since a few scrawny ones try to scrape out an existence in the rocky conditions out by North River Road, coming out to our corner of Palouse.  The combination of the peaches-and-cream orange with the little pale blue anthers inside the flower is striking.  All of my Collomia came from seed from Thorn Creek Native Seeds, but now I get enough to spread from my own supply.  I have recommended Thorn Creek as a source elsewhere, but in a project like this, it has been great to be able to buy some seeds from a trusted source that you know is indeed, all local.  All of Jacie Jensen's (the owner of Thorn Creek) seeds are from native plants that grew on her family farm on the aptly-named Paradise Ridge just south of Moscow, ID.  Without people like Jacie, Jim, and Charlotte, I can't imagine having been able to do this work. 

A year of flowers #60 & #61: Paintbrush

 

Castilleja miniata

 

Castilleja cusickii
 

For years I've wanted to grow Paintbrush. There are several species that grow around here, and they are a peculiar plant, because they are parasites--they need a host plant.  For years I tried to get them to grow with Idaho fescue, but it never worked.  I tried seed, I tried little plants from various sources.  Nothing.  I'd watch a plant slowly fade, and it was sad.  I heard that people got good results growing them with Taperleaf penstemon, but not me. 

Until now. 

Charlotte, whose praises I sang in the previous post, knew that I've wanted Paintbrush for years, and when there was no Idaho Native Plant Society plant sale last year, she brought me a few plants that would have been in the sale--three Castilleja and some small Taperleaf penstemon for host plants.  It was July, and really it seemed pretty futile to try to plant sensitive native species in July, but I kept watering them.  I was stunned to see this year that I've got two vigorous C. miniata clumps going, and one C. cusickii... doing great. I truly have no idea whatsoever why I was successful this time, but I think it was Charlotte spreading her awesome native plant juju.  

A year of flowers #59: Showy milkweed

 

Asclepias speciosa

This is the ideal food for Monarch butterflies, I am told, though I haven't seen them here.  For me, this plant begins my paean of gratitude to Charlotte, who if there were such a person, would be Charlotte Milkweed-Seed.  If you need milkweed around Palouse, she can fix you up.  

Anyone in Palouse reading this will know what I mean, when I say that our town of about a thousand has a weirdly high proportion of wonderful generous, creative, and brilliant people.  I already mentioned my first native plant sensei, Jim, who helped me realize that we were surrounded by magnificent plant life here, in the dwindling era of what was the Great Palouse prairie.  I've given a shout-out to Jacie Jensen of Thorn Creek Native Seeds, who sells authentic local native plant seed.  But there are many here, and one is Charlotte, who has given me some spectacular plants, including this massive Showy milkweed that was the first milkweed I planted.  As you can see, it has decided that it belongs here.  This is truly the Mother of All Milkweeds.  Between Charlotte, the Idaho Native Plant Society (White Pine Chapter) plant sale, and Jacie Jensen's seeds, I have a couple of dozen growing here now.  

 

We are now at what I understand is "peak prairie," when the tallest plants push up as high as they will go, blooming their best out there, the grass going to seed. 

 

 

A year of flowers #58: Western hawkweed

  

Hieracium scouleri

 

I now have several clumps of Western hawkweed growing out there, but I killed my first one.  It was early in my interest in native plants, and I bought a Western hawkweed plant from someone selling native plants at the Moscow (ID) Farmers' Market.  It settled in right away and was doing great, when I read something about hawkweed being a terrible noxious weed, not to be grown under any circumstances.  I immediately dug it up and into the compost it went.  Oops, the terrible invasive weed wasn't my Western hawkweed, it was H. aurantiacum, the dreaded Orange hawkweed.  ...sigh... oh well...

A year of flowers #57: Agoseris

 

Agoseris grandiflora

 

Year ago, when I encountered these in the prairie, they so resembled dandelions that I dug up a couple of them.  But there were enough plants out there that I didn't plant that were real natives, that it finally dawned on me that I had better ID everything.  And so I figured out that this was some sort of Agoseris.  I am pretty sure (though not 100%) that this is A. grandiflora.  

 

A year of flowers #56: Scarlet gilia

 

Ipomopsis aggregata

 

Now it's summer, and there is no more spectacular native plant to announce the solstice than Scarlet gilia.  Summer flowers don't mess around, and while there are stunning blooms on the horizon as we come to "peak prairie," Scarlet gilia is a remarkable plant.  It is biennial (or "short-lived") and in their first year they put out a ferny-looking rosette on the ground.  Then you get these amazing red spikes (no color tweaking is done in these images), so last year I knew already that it would be good this year.  I had seen a few around Kamiak Butte, so I knew this was a native when I spotted a substantial drift of it in the road cut on Route 27 going north from Palouse to Garfield, years ago.  All my seed came from one afternoon where I collected some there, along with the Phacelia seed that produced those still-blooming bee-smothered white spikes in the background.  By starting several patches of these with a few handfuls of seed, they now are a population that I've been able to spread throughout the project. The pink is Clarkia, still going strong. 

Scarlet gilia has a strange scent, and the bees, other insects, and hummingbirds are mad for it.  I assume there must have been traditional Native American medicinal uses for it.  It just seems like a powerful plant, somehow.  As we go into July, the hummingbirds will begin a peculiar aerial ballet, alighting on it, then zipping around the flowers and suddenly shooting hundreds of feet straight up in the air.  I am happy to provide the bird-nip for the show.  Significantly, the deer, bunnies, etc. do not mess with this stuff. 

A year of flowers #55: Blanket flower

  

Gaillardia aristata

 

I love seeing a native bee doing its thing there in this photo.  I have other clumps of Gaillardia going, all from seed from Thorn Creek Native Seeds--so, a local source--but this one is different.  This came from seed from about a half mile east of me, at a bend in the North fork of Palouse River. This flower is so beautiful, I had collected seeds for it years ago, and I had 4-5 clumps of it going strong in various spots out there, when I got the Palouse Conservation District grant in 2013, and received the advice that I needed to scatter seed from a plant like this on bare ground, raked in to the top 1/4".  This plant does not seem to sprout from seed planted in this way, however, and while I was learning this through experience, the voles (oh yes, the dreaded voles) discovered that Gaillardia root was tasty, and I started discovering holes where plants had recently been.  It seemed that ALL of these really-local Gaillardia were gone by 2018, and while I had others... this seemed like a sad thing to lose.  Then, last year... a few tell-tale leaves came up where one of these old ones had been, and it gave up a few flowers.  This year, there are many blooms there, and I will be now be able to bring this local one back here.  Whew, that was close!

A year of flowers #54: Needle-leaved navarretia

 

Navarretia intertexta

 

This is another native plant that was here already when I moved in, in a few dry exposed spots (and I've noticed it beside the gravel road east of me, growing in pretty harsh conditions), and while lovely little white sparkles hover an inch off the ground now, they do turn into little stickery things.  I used to pull it like the Fiddleneck, but one June day many years ago, I thought--I had better see if this is a native before I pull it all out.  And it was.  So I watch it, but I basically let it go...

A year of flowers #53: Tapertip onion

 

Allium acuminatum

 

All of my Allium has come from the side of the gravel road about a mile or so east of me, just across the border in Idaho, where I collected this seed for several years.  Now they spread themselves around.  

A year of flowers #52: Syringa

  

 

Philadelphus lewisii

 

I was surprised to learn years ago that "Syringa," one of the common names for this shrub, was not in its scientific name, but it's poetic nonetheless.  It is the state flower of Idaho, and was collected by Meriweather Lewis as part of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition.  This is also known as "Lewis's mock-orange" and it has a sublime scent in those lovely flowers.

 

A year of flowers #51: Blue elderberry

 

Sambucus nigra

I have planted four Blue elderberry shrubs in the prairie, but the birds have planted three, including this 20-foot-tall monster example that was the first one I had out there.  It came out of nowhere, and Jim Roberts (my neighbor and native plant sensei) properly identified it for me. 

They have an interesting growth habit that you can see in this photo, that they are always putting on new growth, and the old growth sort of dies off and sits there.  Of course the berries had all sorts of uses, but these dead elderberry stalks were also important to Native Americans.  When I first came here in 1990 and started teaching in the WSU music department, there was a professor there, Loran Olsen, who had been a pianist in his earlier career, but over the years had first befriended, then was accepted by the local Nez Perce as someone who respected and tried to support and encourage traditional arts.  He was teaching a course in Native American music and, because I had no education whatsoever in this heritage, I audited his course so I could learn more.  After Dr. Olsen retired, the course was taken over by Dr. Ron Pond, a Umatilla/Palootspu shaman with whom I shared an office off-and-on for many years.  He was the real deal, and I felt fortunate to have learned a great deal from him as well.

Among the Nez Perce, flutes are made from hollowed-out Blue elderberry stalks.  They have a hard outside and a soft inside that you can push out with a harder stick or other tool and make a tube.  You make a fipple with pine tar (or chewing gum--Dr. Olsen's idea for making them with his Native American music class), and then you adjust the hole above the fipple, to make a sound by wrapping it with sinew.  

When a plant gets some age on it, there are often these dead stalks that have been hollowed out by wind and weather sticking out from the plant, and they can whistle in the wind.  The Nez Perce believe that the Great Spirit brought them music and taught them how to make flutes, by making the elderberry stalks sing in the wind.

A year of flowers #50: Phacelia

   

Phacelia heterophylla 

 

I collected the seeds for this because I was at a spot collecting seeds for another plant, saw the dried up stalks of this, and thought, "That looks like a native.  I'll just collect the seeds and find out."  Sometimes that can be an unwise strategy, but in this case it worked out.  Especially since, as with several of the flowers I have been posting, the original site was purged of native plants by some fool drunk on herbicide. 

Lots of it sprouted, enough that I was a little worried that it was some invasive noxious thing, but it is indeed native, and apparently much appreciated by the local native bees.  The clumps of it are buzzing with them.  For some odd reason, many people have been promoting dandelions as this great thing to grow for bees.  I mean, grow whatever you want, but dandelions are an invasive noxious weed, and I pull every one I find.  They are not, however, the first food for bees (I recall that I had posted the first 15-16 flowers in this series before dandelions started blooming around here), and they are not nearly as good a source for pollen as many of these natives are.  I am not a very skilled photographer, and it was tricky to get a shot of one of these bees doing their thing, but you can see the little bee working their magic in the middle of the photo, below.

 

A year of flowers #49: Ponderosa pine

  

Pinus ponderosa

I am not entirely sure what stage of this bloom this image captures.  First it's a hard purple-wine-colored bud, and then it's like this as it heads toward being a cone, so I'm calling this the flower.  

Planting Ponderosa pine seedlings in the prairie thirty years ago this month is what started it all.  It was a weedy alfalfa field, but a friend of mine knew about free little tree seedlings left over from the University of Idaho plant sale, and I got a bunch that I planted randomly all over the property.  About a third of them got mowed, but now there are a bunch of c.30-foot pine trees out there, looking like real trees.  They form an important habitat for a lot of native plants, which sprout under their dappled shade.  I used the photo below to try to capture the white yarrow clouds (which it doesn't really quite do), but I will use it again here to show some of these pines.  

A year of flowers #48: Rocky Mountain little sunflower

  

Helianthella uniflora

I just visited a tiny-but-rich remnant of Palouse prairie, and it was wall-to-wall with these flowers.  I now have a bunch of clumps of these coming up, but for years I struggled with these and certain other native flowers--that, for the life of me, I could not get them to sprout.  As with many parts of this project, I have had to learn by doing, and when you get something wrong in a long-term project like this, it can be several years turning that ship around!  The conventional wisdom on growing native flowers is that you clear some dirt and gently rake the seeds into the top 1/4" or so.  There are certainly plants for which that method works, but definitely not for this one, or Gaillardia, or Sticky geranium, or Balsamroot, etc.  So, when I got my grant from the Palouse Conservation District, I had my first contact with some plant experts who told me about the 1/4" raking thing, I took their advice, and as a result... I wasted a lot of seed.  In addition, plants that were not very long-lived (like Gaillardia) started fading away because new plants weren't being established.  In fact, because voles like to eat the roots, I had lost ALL but one of the original Gaillardia whose seed I had collected down the road (future post on those--they are just coming on now).   

Now, to the credit of these experts, they understood that recreating Palouse prairie was a new thing--apparently I am among the first people who have tried it.  After the failure of the rake method, I returned to my "divot" method--dig a few shovelfuls of dirt, turn it over, and break it up, and work the seed into the top inch or so.  And since then I have gotten all the species that failed in the years I was raking in seed.  I informed the expert who had advised me otherwise, and he said he appreciated my sharing my experience because they really don't know how best to do this.  I did a couple of posts on my rake-versus-divot experiments a few years ago... 

 

https://palouserivermusic.blogspot.com/2015/11/rake-versus-divot.html

https://palouserivermusic.blogspot.com/2016/05/rake-vs-divot-part-two.html

A year of flowers #47: Yarrow

 

Achillea millefolium

 

Yarrow is another flower like Wyeth's buckwheat that creates hovering clouds over the green in June.  Yarrow is white, while the buckwheat is cream/pale yellow. I have never planted yarrow--it was here when I arrived, and through all the mistakes and disasters, yarrow persists.  I can't seem to get a photo that delivers the effect of the floating white yarrow clouds, but it is lovely out there.

A year of flowers #46: Wyeth's buckwheat

Paddy, the border collie, with drifts of Wyeth's buckwheat

 

 

Eriogonum heracleoides

In June, we begin to get several different species blooming that look like little clouds hovering over the green.  All of my Wyeth's buckwheat seed came from down the road, just across the border in Idaho, years ago.  I wondered if it's edible, since it produces a LOT of seed, which has enabled me to spread it all over the property, as well as share with locals who want to grow it.  I did a little research and have found that other Eriogonum spp. were used by Native Americans for food, so I can't imagine this one didn't get used that way, but I don't know for sure... 

A year of flowers #45: Velvet lupine

 

Lupinus leucophyllus

 

I am not sure why the other lupine I have is known as a "silky" lupine, while this one is "velvet," but this is the first lupine with which I had success.  It is arguably not as beautiful a bloom as L. sericeus, but it's interesting how the colored part of the bloom ascends the flower stalk.  I have noticed that this variety grows in a few spots around my little town of Palouse, and I collected the seeds for mine many years ago from an area near a trailer park right at the junction of route 272 and route 95, just across the border in Idaho.  That patch has long ago been mowed/sprayed to death, so I feel fortunate for having rescued these.  At first I was disappointed that I hadn't collected the seeds of the "pretty lupine," but this one has grown on me (pun intended).  For one thing, I must have gotten very lucky to get those seeds, which I have struggled to collect from my own plants (they seem to be immature in the pod, but they immediately disappear on ripening), yet they manage to shed viable seeds and spread all by themselves.  And they are very happy here, apparently.

A year of flowers #44: Silky lupine

   

Iris sericeus

Silky lupines are the most common native lupine in the Palouse region, and they put on a beautiful bloom.  At first, I had a lot of trouble getting them to grow, though.  They'll die if you try to transplant them, and until I discovered the proper method, I only managed to get a couple of plants to grow out a LOT of seed I had collected.  The trick is that the evening before you intend to plant them (so this is in fall), you heat water up to 180º, throw your seeds in, and let the water cool overnight.  The vast majority of viable seeds will germinate.  This particular lupine came from seed I purchased from Thorn Creek Native Seeds. 

A year of flowers #43: Mystery iris

 

Iris ????

Last year in late June, my neighbors Janet and Butch invited me out to the family farm, just south of Kamiak Butte, to look at some native plants before they cut the hay in that spot.  It sounded like Janet had seen some Iris out there, and they said if there was anything I would like to try to transplant that I was welcome to it, since cutting it as part of the hay every year is pretty hard on flowers like this.  The other plant they had was lupine, and in my experience it is pointless to try to move them, but iris can be moved.  The bloom was gone, but these had the slimmer leaves and color of I. missouriensis, so I dug a couple of clumps and planted them where there was no other iris--that way I'd know if that particular project was successful. 

When my other Iris missouriensis was blooming (see #30, May 18), I noticed that these had put up a bunch of leaves, but no bloom.  This is not uncommon when you move a plant, that it takes a year or so to get comfy and then it goes back to its former self.  Still, I was happy that they had lived.  Then a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that they were putting up blooms.  In the last week they bloomed and they're white.  Iris missouriensis is not white--they can be pale blue or purple, but not like this.  The other major hint that it isn't the same species is of course that it bloomed weeks later.  I made a bouquet of native flowers from the prairie for Janet as a thank you, and she took this photo of the flower.

There are not many white native iris species, it turns out.  The closest I could find is I. chrysophylla, which is native to Northern CA, and Western OR.  The veins in the petals are more pronounced, it seems, but it's similar.  There are other examples of species turning up in the Western part of the state, and having an echo population in the Palouse, which is the highest ground east of the Cascades (our elevation here is about 2600 feet). One possibility is that these irises are such a group.  https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/beauty/iris/Pacific_Coast/iris_chrysophylla.shtml

 

I know the official Whitman County botanist, and sent her an email today.  Maybe we have a new species.  I will go out to the spot where I got these in the next few days, and hopefully I will see others.  I will report back.

UPDATE 6/16/21

I heard back from Dr. Brunsfeld.  She said that it is indeed a Rocky Mountain iris, but that it is an unusual white blooming example.  I did return to the site where I had found it, and I realized that I was lucky to get this.  They must not have hayed the spot last year which is why I saw this then, but this year it was hayed as usual, and nothing but grass was visible.  

A year of flowers #42: Cow parsnip

 

Heracleum maximum

I think Cow parsnip is spectacular.  Nice to have a substantial shrub-sized native that will take up some real estate out there.  Its scientific name (yes, it was named for Hercules) makes me think it ought to be a character in Transformers cartoons--it sounds like "Optimus Prime"!  Anyway, one farmer I know thought it was hilarious that I was planting Cow parsnip, but I love it.  

I do have a public-service announcement related to this.  You may have heard of a really-awful non-native invasive plant called "Giant hogweed."  It is for real, and it is in fact a relative of Cow parsnip--its scientific name is Heracleum mantegazzianum.  It apparently gives people nasty burns and there is an effort to eradicate it, for good reason.  I have heard that some people are sensitive to Cow parsnip, too--apparently, it can irritate the skin--but nothing like Giant hogweed.  So, I sincerely hope people don't start going after cow parnsip, a benign native, which grows all over the Pacific Northwest.  

Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on Giant hogweed, and it includes a section comparing Giant hogweed and Cow parnsip (scroll down to "similar species").  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_mantegazzianum

A year of flowers #41: Clarkia

 

Clarkia pulchella

 

For the first couple of years after I moved here, I saw a single Clarkia blooming in the east part of the property.  I had no idea what it was but it was memorable.  It is an annual, so clearly it seeded itself those first couple of years, but then it was gone.  Later I recognized what it was, and found a source down the road.  A little bit of seed from those, and this population was off and running.  My effort to re-establish Clarkia in the prairie has been an unqualified success.  They're everywhere. 

A year of flowers #40: Wood's rose

Rosa woodsii

There's a copse of Wood's rose and snowberry in the Northeast corner of the property that was here when I moved here, although I think I was the first person to encourage it.  This rose is from that patch.  This native rose sprouts all over the property, though, and I have moved many sprouts to spots here and there in the prairie.  Like the Ponderosa pine, Wood's rose provides protection for many other more delicate plants, and the birds love building their nests in that copse.