Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, board coach educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Galesburg, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. We are going to be chatting with Erin Garrett about the perennial plant of the year. It's a grass, and Erin, we know loves grasses. But first, you know I'm not here by myself.
Chris Enroth: 00:24I'm joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Emily Swihart in Milan, Illinois. Emily, how's it going?
Emily Swihart: 00:31Oh, it's going great, Chris. Good to see you. And I am so excited to talk with Erin about this plant. I love when the perennial plant of the year is a plant that I am already in love with. Like, it's easy.
Emily Swihart: 00:43It's easy to fall in love with it. So very excited to have Erin with us.
Chris Enroth: 00:48It it it's a fun one this year and one that I can find, which is nice. Sometimes you can't find them as easily. But but this year, I I definitely know where there are some, and I am also growing some. So I'll we've checked all the boxes today. Yes.
Chris Enroth: 01:05So I guess we shouldn't let listeners and viewers wait. You know? I'm sure they're on the edge of their seat right now. But let's bring Erin in here and chat about this week's perennial plan of the year that we're gonna, well, chat about. Hi, Erin.
Erin Garrett: 01:21Hello. Happy to be here with you all. Excited. I'm calling in from Metropolis today, so way at the bottom of Illinois, home of Superman. Happy to be with you all today.
Chris Enroth: 01:34Yes. And I see well, you're wearing your orange and blue today. What is Superman's red and blue? Is that his his thing? Yeah.
Chris Enroth: 01:41I mean, so close. I mean, U of I orange is basically red. So, yeah, you got Superman colors on. Erin, you are a natural resources, energy, and environment educator. Correct?
Erin Garrett: 01:53Mhmm. Yep. I am. And so I talk about a lot of different things. You may have heard as was alluded to that I do a lot of grass identification.
Erin Garrett: 02:03So, typically, people, I am surprised, are excited to learn about grasses. So I do a lot of that, but I also talk about native planting and pollinators as well as work with master gardeners, master naturals, and some food donation gardens. So do a little bit of a lot of different things in the natural resource world.
Chris Enroth: 02:22Excellent.
Emily Swihart: 02:24Yeah. That's great. So before we dive in, I don't think we've even mentioned what we're talking about today, but we did mention that you're a grass specialist. I'm curious, like, how you got into extension and how you they did you always have a passion for grasses, or is this a No. A discovered talent?
Erin Garrett: 02:44Yeah. I it's funny because we I don't know. We were just talking about how you figure out what you wanna do when you grow up. And I was like, well, I didn't exactly think I was gonna work for extension. But what I did find my passion for was prairie, prairie restoration, prairie ecosystems in general.
Erin Garrett: 03:04So when I was at school, in Minnesota, I did some internships with the Nature Conservancy during the summers, out on prairies in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. And during that time, I had to do a lot of grass identification. We were doing some monitoring projects where we were basically assessing if the fire rotation they had these, restorations on and the grazing they were doing either with bison or cattle was actually, positively impacting the plant communities like they were hoping they were. So we went out and surveyed, and I had to identify grasses when they were six inches tall, all the way to when they were six feet tall. So that kind of just led me to figuring out a lot on my own, how to identify grasses because I was looking at them every every day, up close and personal.
Erin Garrett: 03:55So, it just kind of snowballed from there. And then, I just decided I wanted to do more outreach rather than more research. So, this extension job opened up, and I said, hey. That's a great fit, and I've been here almost nine years. So, it's kind of kinda gone from there.
Erin Garrett: 04:12And then I just, started doing GRASSID programs, and people were hungry for that information. So kinda snowballed from there, and there's a lot of there's a lot of things out there now with my name and Grass', together. So if people are interested, you can look me up on our website, and you'll find a whole website, blog, videos, webinars, lots of stuff. So yeah.
Chris Enroth: 04:36Well, thank you. Doing
Emily Swihart: 04:37go ahead.
Chris Enroth: 04:38Are you still writing for is it grasses at a glance?
Erin Garrett: 04:41I am. Yes. So that's my blog. I took a break last year since I was out on maternity leave most of the summer, but we are back, and that comes out usually twice a month. I was a little behind last month, but I am catching up now.
Erin Garrett: 04:56Those will come out so folks can subscribe or usually we share it on Facebook, things like that. There's ways to find it. So
Emily Swihart: 05:04Yep. And I subscribe, and it's great. You do a a really lovely job of of identifying and helping us. Not just native grasses. You cover some of the problematic ones too, and so very useful.
Emily Swihart: 05:15We'll link to it in the in the show notes. Chris, why don't you kick us off with the, you know, the the big show here? What are we talking about? We've we've hinted at it a couple of times. So why don't you kick us off with the questions, and we'll get we'll get going.
Chris Enroth: 05:32So this week, we are gonna be chatting about the perennial plant of the year for the Perennial Plant Association, and it is big bluestem black hawks. That is the cult of our name. So I guess, Erin, we gotta get started with what's big bluestem, and how do I know if I'm looking at this? What I'm looking at if I'm looking at a big bluestem?
Erin Garrett: 05:59Okay. We're gonna do audio grass ID, which is always everyone's favorite. So big bluestem is one of the three you'll kind of hear them talked about as the three dominant species that used to be found across Illinois and everywhere you'd find the Tallgrass Prairie. So big bluestem, Indian grass, switchgrass, those are kind of the three big grasses that characterize the Tallgrass Prairie. Right?
Erin Garrett: 06:28And so they typically get over five feet tall, some can get up to eight feet tall on the prairie, and they're those really iconic prairie species. So a lot of folks are familiar with big bluestem. It's also called turkey foot, and that name comes from the the shape of the seed heads. So usually has at least three branches, that make, like, a turkey foot shape. I don't know how else to describe it without a picture, but it can have more than three branches.
Erin Garrett: 06:56I'll put that out there. But big blue also, you may think, well, it's obviously a bluegrass if that's the name, but not really, because we like to name things blue that aren't blue. Sorry. If it was me naming it, I wouldn't do that. But big blue stem typically has, if anything, more of a red hue to it, more of a red stem than a blue stem.
Erin Garrett: 07:21And looking at the stem too, a lot of grasses if you roll the stem between your fingers it feels very round and it rolls really easily. Big bluestem is one of the grasses that's got a flattened stem. So that's one of the main things I tell people to look for before it's in bloom, as you can kinda roll it and it feels flattened. And then it'll have, you know, pretty big leaves. I'd say a foot to a couple feet.
Erin Garrett: 07:47And I'm trying to think what else really makes it stand out. And it really is when it's in bloom. It's that turkey foot shape. So depending on cultivar that you look at, they might not get quite as tall, right, as six or eight feet. I think this one, blackhawks, is usually around five feet, so it stays a little bit more compact and shorter.
Erin Garrett: 08:05But, yeah, that's, in general, your big blue.
Emily Swihart: 08:11And forgive me if I miss it. It's a clump grass. Right?
Erin Garrett: 08:14It's It is. Yes. I didn't say that. So it is a clump forming grass, and most of all of those tall grass, species are clump formers. Now that doesn't mean it won't spread, because it does have short rhizomes.
Erin Garrett: 08:29So typically, that just makes the clump get bigger, but it can spread outside of that as well. And sometimes, like, if you see a prairie restoration, you might be like, wow. There's so much big bluestem. It doesn't look like it's a clumping plant. Right?
Erin Garrett: 08:45But if you look up close individually, you will see those individual individual clumps.
Emily Swihart: 08:52Thank you for explaining that because there's a difference, and so I appreciate you giving us that little little information. Where do we find it? So we can identify it. But, like, what kind of ecosystems you said the Tallgrass Prairie. Mhmm.
Emily Swihart: 09:06But there's a huge distribution native distribution of Big Blue. But, like, in that, like, where do we find it?
Erin Garrett: 09:15Right. So you would have been able to find it, right, in the Tallgrass Prairie. Well, we know we don't have a lot of prairie left in Illinois, unfortunately. So if there are some remnants, you're probably gonna find big bluestem there. It is a very popular grass that's included in restoration seed mixes or in some CRP mixes.
Erin Garrett: 09:37You can find big bluestem, but you can also just find it along the roadside still. So when I'm driving on the interstate, I'll look over and see clumps of big bluestem, and I'm like, yay. I love seeing that rather than phragmites, right, which is also there. So you can definitely still see it in those areas. It does prefer and need full sun.
Erin Garrett: 09:57I don't you don't find it when we get into more of the part sun or shady areas, but that's kinda typically where I'd where I'd find it.
Emily Swihart: 10:05And it's pretty tolerant of a wide range of soil types. Right? Like, it can tolerate kind of a a variety of pHs and moisture levels to a degree.
Erin Garrett: 10:17Yeah. Yeah. And that's one thing that a lot of the times we think about prairie plants. Right? And we think about the amazing soil that we have in Illinois that obviously is kind of why we don't have the prairie anymore because it's perfect for farming.
Erin Garrett: 10:33So we think, oh, this is really deep rich soil, so big blue stem's gonna need really rich soil with a lot of fertilizer, but it's actually the opposite and it does really well in poorer soils, because again, picturing a prairie, if you think about how dense that vegetation is, how many plants are out there, they're all competing really heavily for resources. So they don't get a lot individually. So I kind of like to think about it in that way and, like, put Big Blue in the context of where it usually grows. So it does well in poorer soils, in clay soils. It can handle drought really well once it's established.
Erin Garrett: 11:13So it really is a a hardy one of a hardy plant, one of the easier ones, I'm gonna say, to grow. And kind of in general, the grasses, for the most part, are gonna be less finicky plants, I'll say, and a little bit easier to grow in your garden. So Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Swihart: 11:31To that end, this might be this is just a cursory observation I have made from different prairies and restorations. Maybe there's nothing to it. I haven't looked into it. But but since you're a grass expert, I'm gonna ask you. Oh, boy.
Emily Swihart: 11:47I tend to see of those three big grasses together, I tend to see more big blue and yellow Indian grass together and switchgrass kinda being in a different kind of area. Like, they, like, naturally select out. So I see, like, more of a I don't know if it's a relationship that's, you know, going on if they, like, prefer the same types of things. If there's competition, that's kind of, like, equal level between the yellow Indian grass and the big blue. I just have like, I've noticed it in, like I said, both restorations and in kind of native prayer.
Emily Swihart: 12:21So am I just seeing things, or is there something there?
Erin Garrett: 12:25No. I've noticed the same thing. So I don't know the reasoning behind it, but, yeah, I typically don't see, like, big stands of switchgrass. So I don't know if just in general, it is less aggressive than the other two. The other two are kind of they'll they'll they'll spread over time.
Erin Garrett: 12:45Yeah. I would also say for at least the Indian grass is gonna produce a lot more seeds, so that might be part of it too. Switchgrass is gonna have that big open panicle, but, like, not really a lot of seeds on it comparatively. But, yeah, I don't actually know. This is just me speculating possibilities, but I do see that same thing as well.
Erin Garrett: 13:05But I love switchgrass. It's one of my favorites. Mhmm. So I'm like, man, I wish that, like, it was able to hold its own a little better in those in those restorations. Yes.
Emily Swihart: 13:15Yeah. Same. I switchgrass is great. I actually, in my landscape, have switchgrass growing instead of the other ones, the allergic ones.
Erin Garrett: 13:22Same. Me too.
Emily Swihart: 13:24Oh, look at that. Alright, Chris. You wanna join you wanna join us? Do you have switchgrass?
Chris Enroth: 13:31Well, I do not. I I only have Andrew I know. I know. Well so let's look at Blackhawks because I think we're kind of well, we're just kinda using this perennial plant thing so we talk about big bluestem today. Right?
Chris Enroth: 13:46Yes. Yes. Yes. Wink. Wink.
Chris Enroth: 13:48But let's talk about this particular cultivar that has been named perennial plant of the year and maybe point out some of the differences between this cultivar and the straight species of, big bluestem. So, Erin, do you notice any striking differences, or are they very similar?
Erin Garrett: 14:11Yeah. So I am not I have not planted this one myself. So I looked up a few things, but you all might be, better able to help explain this one. But, really, what we're gonna be looking for is differences in color. And a lot of the times with the grasses, when you get different cultivars of them, typically, it's changed the leaf color a little bit to be a little bit bolder or brighter, or have more of a distinct color.
Erin Garrett: 14:37So with this black hawks one, you're gonna get more purplish color almost to a dark black, even. So that's gonna be a little bit different than your kind of wild type big bluestem, which I mentioned before. It could have a little bit of red. I've seen some that has like red edging on the leaves. Sometimes it can be a little bit silvery blue, but I usually see that more in little blue rather than big blue.
Erin Garrett: 15:01So it's gonna have more of that striking color. And then, the more compact height was the other thing that I noticed that was a little bit different, which for big blue helps, I think, make it a little bit more not as out of control in a home landscape. Right? I don't think we really want Mhmm. Necessarily an eight foot tall grass.
Erin Garrett: 15:23Maybe. I mean, there are some that we plant for certain situations, but definitely makes this a lot more applicable to a lot of different plantings versus a really, really tall grass. So usually under five feet tall is what I've seen for this one.
Chris Enroth: 15:37So less floppy. Is that maybe the the the technical term? Floppy?
Erin Garrett: 15:43Mhmm.
Chris Enroth: 15:43Less floppy. Yeah. So I I mean, I've helped people do, like, kind of these little prairies in their backyard or prairies for these extension projects. And when you have big bluestem in on the edge, you're fighting that stuff all the time. It's, like, hitting you in the face, and so you gotta either have wide paths or
Erin Garrett: 16:04Mhmm.
Chris Enroth: 16:04You gotta set it back from the path so then people don't get hit in the face by plants.
Erin Garrett: 16:13Hazard of the job. Right?
Chris Enroth: 16:15It is. It is. I mean, I don't mind. You know? You know?
Chris Enroth: 16:18You pluck off a a leaf and you put it in your hair.
Erin Garrett: 16:21So Mhmm.
Chris Enroth: 16:21There you go.
Emily Swihart: 16:24Erin, as you were describing it, and as before the show, I'll admit, I I told you you both that I had this says little blue in my head as I was reading descriptions, and I kept hearing about it because I expect, like, little blue to be kind of the cultivar, the the ornamental plant that we are planting. And so I had to just double check when I saw big blue, and my brain, I don't know, blocked it out. But that size, like, the the, like, that more demure size of blackhawks might be comparable to some of our largest little blue stems. And so just to kinda help people kinda get a a feel for the size or, like, where this might be used in a landscape. It doesn't look like little blue, but, you know, there's a there's definitely a distinct difference between the two.
Emily Swihart: 17:10But that compact size, it is appealing. Mhmm. You know, you don't want it to, like, eat your, you know, do your whole garden bed with the size. So
Erin Garrett: 17:19Yeah. And I think that's important. You bring up a good point in that the size is gonna be variable based on your garden, based on your soil conditions, your site conditions, your moisture. I moved from a site with heavy clay, which I know most of us are familiar with, unfortunately, to my new house. And apparently, I have very sandy soil, and all of my native plants grew two to three feet taller at this house than at the previous house.
Erin Garrett: 17:49And they were the same like, I dug up and brought the plants with me. So my little bluestem grows five to six feet tall. My little bluestem. I don't have big bluestem, but some of my other everything by blazing stars are six feet tall. So everything is relative, I will say.
Erin Garrett: 18:06Yes. So keeping that in mind too. Right? If you have sandier soils, this might grow a little bit taller. Your native plants in general might grow a little bit taller, versus if you have clay soil.
Erin Garrett: 18:17So I was really excited, but now I'm like, oh, man. Everything gets out of control. Everything gets too tall. It's a little too big. But
Emily Swihart: 18:25yeah. Careful what you wish for.
Erin Garrett: 18:27Exactly. Right?
Emily Swihart: 18:29Yeah. Yeah. And you'll have I I would be curious to observe, like, if that comparison happened also with blackhawks. Because sometimes with cultivars, there's more like, just having those controlled genetics. Mhmm.
Emily Swihart: 18:42Those sizes are more more, like, predetermined versus the the wild genetics, and and there's more variability. But, yeah, growing sites make a difference in some.
Erin Garrett: 18:53Mhmm.
Emily Swihart: 18:55Well so what so we're gonna just keep moving on. Like, we're not gonna spend a whole bunch of time talking about Blackhawks even though that was, like, the the teaser. Right? But it's a perennial plant association selection of the year. They do this every year.
Emily Swihart: 19:11Blackhawk was chosen. Like, why was it? Like, can we talk about, like, the selection criteria for the perennial plant association's plant of the year just for every year? Because they're they continue to evaluate. People can go back and see past selections, and we can still access those in garden centers and plant them in our landscape.
Emily Swihart: 19:28Blackhawks will be a perennial, literally, plant that we have in our landscape. So thanks for laughing, Erin. Chris is not amused with me anymore. So
Erin Garrett: 19:39Yeah. So I, you know, have gotten a little bit more familiar with the selection process in the last few years, I'd say, because there's been more native ours that have been selected, which I'm excited to see. They're, getting a little bit more noticed in the in the horticultural world, but, yeah, the there are a bunch of criteria that they kind of look at. So, they want it to be obviously a perennial plant. One that can grow well across a bunch of different climates, one that's generally kind of lower maintenance, has fewer pests and diseases, and has that multiple season interest.
Erin Garrett: 20:22So for me, I'm like, it should be a grass every year because I feel like that fits the criteria. But, you know, I'm not the one that decides this. So, yeah, it looks like to me that people, members of the perennial plant association are able to nominate plants that they would like to be considered, and then a committee chooses a few that get to be voted on. And then, folks are able to vote on those. I was looking it up today, it said sometimes there's, like, 400 nominations.
Erin Garrett: 20:52So I don't know how they go from 400 to four, on a ballot. I'm not privy to that information, but I'd like to be in that conversation because that sounds fun. But, yeah, that's kind of the the process that happens. And then, oh, and also one I didn't mention is, like, readily available for purchase. So I think that's a big piece, especially when we talk about more of the native plants.
Erin Garrett: 21:14Sometimes it's great to talk about these plants, but it's really hard to find them. And so we could say plant x y z plant all you want, but if you can't find it, that doesn't you're not able to do that. Right? So that's another important piece too.
Chris Enroth: 21:29Alright. Well, let's say we found this plant in the garden center, and whether we're planting a big bluestem straight species or the blackhawks cultivar, Erin, where would be a good place to cite this, like, a in a home landscape? And and maybe how could we use it in certain ways if it's such a tall plant?
Erin Garrett: 21:55Yeah. So I think you'll definitely need to take that into consideration. Right? We talk a lot about right plant, right place. So I wouldn't necessarily plant it right up close to my house.
Erin Garrett: 22:07It's gonna put out a lot of vegetation, every year, so we wanna make sure that we site it further away from the home or any other structure so that it has a lot of space around it, doesn't take over things. But, you know, there's a lot of, particularly non native grasses that we use kind of as statement pieces, kind of as our stand alone grasses that we plant a row of clumps, right, to have kind of a border effect. That's what I'm trying to do with my switchgrasses, to limited success thus far, but I'm working on it. A living fence. Right?
Erin Garrett: 22:40So big bluestem would be great for that, But it could also, you know, in more of your formal garden, it could be that, like, more taller statement piece that could replace like a shrub. Right? So you could have it in that way too. And we talked about how it will have that four season interest and should stand for the most part if it doesn't flop over. Should stand through the winter, right, and provide more of that structural, upright structural piece too.
Erin Garrett: 23:04So that's something to consider. Of course, can use it in more of a naturalized, like prairie planting area restoration garden meadow thing, you can do that too. But kind of in the formal landscape, yeah. More of that statement statement grass. I don't know that I would do a big clump of them altogether, but that's just my style style preference.
Erin Garrett: 23:30Maybe folks are really into that. You could do that. But, yeah, what are your thoughts on citing this one?
Chris Enroth: 23:39I I'm gonna take a note from our one of our retired horticulture educators, Martha Smith. I think she planted one by her house Mhmm. Which you mentioned that's not a good idea, and then she tried to burn it. She melted her siding.
Erin Garrett: 23:52Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Enroth: 23:53So I I I'm curious with your switchgrass hedge. Are you maintaining it with fire, or do you, like, cut it down? Or what's your maintenance routine with that?
Erin Garrett: 24:03Okay. So we need to back up a little bit. So what happened was I was gifted 15 pots of little switchgrasses that were dug up, and divided out from another planting. It was fall. I mostly, it was the dead foliage above ground, and I just had the roots.
Erin Garrett: 24:19So of those 15, I'm down to eight that have survived, so far. So they are in a row just in the mowed lawn around them. I tear all the creeping Charlie out multiple times a year and mulch them, but they are 12 feet away from the house, I would say. And I just leave the foliage and then in the spring, chop it, down to the ground usually. Although I didn't this year because I needed to make sure my husband didn't mow them down since they're in the middle of the lawn.
Erin Garrett: 24:51So I left the dead, and for the neighbor's lawn service because they did mow them down, one year. So, they're clearly marked now. But typically with my grasses, I will leave all the, foliage and then early spring and it's gonna vary based on the seasons and what's happening. So for me, way down south, it's like February, that I'm out looking and I will just wait until I see a few little green specks coming out from the clump of my grasses and then I'll chop them all off, and get rid of all that foliage just so it doesn't build up that thatch, right close to your house and it doesn't look that great. But that helps keep them rejuvenated.
Erin Garrett: 25:34So you will get over time like a crown, like the base of the grass that usually builds up and but you just keep cutting it back down, maintaining it. This year, I cut my prairie drop seeds back, and within four days, I had, like, four inches of growth. It was phenomenal. It was crazy. But that's usually what I do for for all the grasses, and they take to it pretty pretty well.
Erin Garrett: 25:57So
Emily Swihart: 26:00Well, Chris, do you burn?
Chris Enroth: 26:02Yes. And I've made mistakes like Martha. So my the former owner in my house, they had planted, like, zebra grass and a couple other nonnative ornamental grasses. Mhmm. Which I'm very mean to.
Chris Enroth: 26:16I hit them all the time with the rake, and I I I burned them. But there was one year I probably was lighting them on fire in a day I shouldn't. It was a little windy, and I might have spread a little bit of that fire into my neighbor's lawn. But I will say this much, that lawn grew back very green, and it it was okay. A couple of creeping Charlie's might have popped in there too, but took care of that.
Chris Enroth: 26:45So, yeah, that's kind of, like, where I was coming from. Like, well, where would I put this in my yard? Because I do like to manage it with fire if I can. I I know what you mean, Erin. Like, I if you get that thatch built up over time, you can get those dead spots in the clumps of grass.
Chris Enroth: 27:02Exactly. And and and if you do manage like fire and you have a bunch of thatch, oh, it's just even hotter. And so, yeah, you gotta watch that.
Erin Garrett: 27:10Mhmm.
Emily Swihart: 27:13I burn mine. Mine is not planted by the house or anything that can light on fire besides the mulch, that is around it. And so with these grasses, my, periodropseed, burn almost every year if I get to it before it starts cleaning up. The switchgrass caveat with the switchgrass, you have got to take off a bunch of that growth. Like, almost all of these.
Emily Swihart: 27:35Like, you have to prune off some of that top because it burns hot, and there's a lot of biomaterial that can go up just, like, incredibly fast. So it's, like, it's scary how quickly some of these big grasses can burn. So just please be careful. And I can't imagine burning it next to my house. That would be terrifying.
Emily Swihart: 27:53Yep. Yeah. But the the mulch does catch on fire too. So I have an iron rake, you know, handy and just watch it. But it really makes it grow well.
Emily Swihart: 28:03I might try your method, Erin, though. That's a little bit more family friendly. I can employ other family members, younger younger family members to do that Mhmm. Activity. So it's pretty tough.
Erin Garrett: 28:15Usually with I'm trying to think. My little bluestem prayer drop seed, I've done that. Most of my sedges stay pretty evergreen, so I just cut the brown tips off, and they come back great. And same with, like, my beet grain that I have that stays pretty evergreen, so I don't usually cut that one back to the ground. But just kinda snip off the brown pieces and keep on going.
Emily Swihart: 28:43You touched on this a little bit. So, like, that's a good way to, like, rejuvenate the plant. But do you see it popping up other places? Like, is little blue going or excuse me. It's big blue.
Emily Swihart: 28:52There I go again with my little blue love. So the germination of big blue is category a. Like, it doesn't need any sort of, like, special, like, you know, treatment, so it could go to c. Do you see that happening? Have you observed that?
Emily Swihart: 29:10Chris, you could answer this too. Like, is it aggressive? Is it gonna be kind of a problem from a reseeding standpoint?
Erin Garrett: 29:16Yeah. So I can't talk big blue because I haven't planted big blue myself. Little blue wise, I have not had it spread at all until this year. I had a few little clumps pop up from seed, which to me, I was like, yes. Free plants.
Erin Garrett: 29:34And they were very easy to dig up and transplant as, like, a year one plant. So on that side, that's what I did with it. But, Chris, I'm interested to hear if what you've experienced with Big Bluestem.
Chris Enroth: 29:46Yes. So I I think for those very well established Big Blues, you can see some spreading, a few seedlings here and there. I do manage a lot of my landscape beds with mulch, so that does help to keep, I think, some of that down. A few of the, like, the pollinator garden projects I've been involved on, especially one early on in my career was, like, at a school, and they had milkweeds. They had lots of different, like, asters and things, and they also had big bluestem.
Chris Enroth: 30:19And after a couple maybe five or so years, it was, like, 95% Big Bluestem. It it just grew very successfully in in that spot and was able to kinda outcompete all of the other Forbes that were planted along with it. And after a while, I it was almost a 100% standopig bluestem. So I I don't know, Erin. Is there a way to, like do we need to hire goats to come in?
Chris Enroth: 30:44Like, what what what do we need to do if we need to manage some of these grasses a little bit if they start to really bully out other plants.
Erin Garrett: 30:53Yeah. That's a good point because what everything that I've heard, right, we used to be like, oh, yeah. Plant, like, all these tall native grasses in your home landscape. It's gonna be great. And we've I've kind of stepped away from that as, like, the wild type for sure in, a home landscape and, like, be careful where you plant them.
Erin Garrett: 31:10Like, we talk about switchgrass. Right? That one is pretty well behaved. I don't think I've ever really seen that one get out. But more like in the Indian grass big blue, they definitely can spread over time.
Erin Garrett: 31:20I know on the bigger, like, restoration scale now, if, like, people are just getting started, we typically say, like, don't focus on seeding in the grasses, but focus on establishing your wildflowers and getting the diversity that you want. And oftentimes, those grasses will find their way in anyways, and you might not have to seed them in. If you think about what's visiting your garden, a lot of times the birds will just bring in that seed on their own. Or after a few years, you could then overseed with some big blue if you did want it in there. Right?
Erin Garrett: 31:52But you'd wanna, like, set that high competition site for them from the start because you're right. In that instance in that instance that you're talking about, asters, milkweed, and big blue, they're all kind of can be bullies, right, in those situations. They're aggressive natives, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That's what they're adapted to do and and spread over time, and and we talked about how, you know, it was a dominant tall grass, species. So definitely in that case, you know, it can take over.
Erin Garrett: 32:21I haven't really I don't know what my recommendation would be to kind of beat it back. It might be again, depends on the setting. It might be selectively herbiciding a few of them to kind of kick it back a little bit, or otherwise, that's that's all you're gonna have. So you kinda gotta think back to, like, what are the goals of your space? What are you willing to do?
Erin Garrett: 32:43What do you want? But, yeah, it will it can definitely take over.
Chris Enroth: 32:48That that's our recommendation a lot to, like, CRP areas where they need to open up some of that grass for some some forbs to get growing. So, yeah, selective herbicide.
Erin Garrett: 32:59Mhmm.
Chris Enroth: 33:00Just just to help having a few more pollinating plants out there.
Emily Swihart: 33:04Mhmm.
Erin Garrett: 33:05Yeah. If you're on the larger scale too and you are burning, you can time your burn, right, to, like, knock back the warm season grasses versus promoting them. So, like, you can work with that too, but there's a lot of nuance with with burning and what you could end up promoting versus not. So a lot of our, non native grasses are cool season grasses. So if you knock back the warm season, you might get some other grasses to deal with.
Erin Garrett: 33:28So everything's kind of a you have to balance all of your, again, all of your goals and what you're willing to to work with with with those management tactics. But combinations work too. Right? Maybe fire and herbicide. Just kinda depends.
Emily Swihart: 33:43Well okay. So we've talked about this being a native cultivar. Still being a a native species, are there ecological benefits to having maybe black hawks and then straight species? Like, we can talk about both. Like, maybe start with the how about just the ecological benefits of having big bluestem in our landscape to begin with?
Emily Swihart: 34:08And then maybe we could talk a little bit more about what it might mean genetically changing or, you know, selecting for blackhawks.
Erin Garrett: 34:16Yeah. So definitely, native plants and native grasses can add a lot to our landscapes. Right? It might not be the first choice that you think of, a native grass. You're like, but it where are the pollinator benefits with the flowers?
Erin Garrett: 34:30Right? It's a little bit harder to see that aspect of it, but the the native grasses can do a lot in our in our landscape to provide a lot of habitat. There are some skipper caterpillars that will eat the leaves of grasses, like big bluestem. So you you can support the skipper caterpillars in that way. You know, the seeds will provide food for for birds.
Erin Garrett: 34:56But I like to also look at other benefits that you might not tangibly see. So if we look try to look underground and imagine what's happening there. Big bluestem roots can get quite deep, another reason to pay attention to where you plant it. But they can get, what, at least eight feet deep, in the right conditions. And so they're able to help capture water and keep it in place and bring it down into the soil versus some of our other plants with shallower roots that are only able to capture and hold so much.
Erin Garrett: 35:26Right? So they're able to help in in that way as well. A lot of them have beneficial relationships with mycorrhizal fungi, underground too so there's a lot of other things happening under the ground that we don't get to see. One of my favorite things that I did is I had, again, a little blue. I'm gonna jump to the other one.
Erin Garrett: 35:46I had a little bluestem growing in a pot for at least five years, five or six years. This is back when I lived in an apartment, and it just moved to my house with me. I kept it in the pot, and then I moved houses again, and I decided it's going in the ground. So I took it out of oh, I don't know how big the pot was. It was like a large a large outdoor pot, and nearly the entire pot was roots.
Erin Garrett: 36:11Just all of these fine roots, and it was just fascinating to see, like, the root mass. It was able to build up, in that time. So I feel lucky because I was able to kinda see behind the curtain and what's going on below ground. But that's another, right, benefit that we don't really we don't really think about, with that soil, root relationship. So that's another, reason, I would say, for, big blue stem in general.
Erin Garrett: 36:41But then you could go into, like, the cultivar discussion, the the nativar cultivar, discussion, right, and if there are any potential negative or positive impacts that can happen with those changes. So in some way, right, certain characteristics of this plant were selected for and bred, to have different characteristics. So in this case with blackhawks, it's gonna change the leaf color. So the leaf color change can When I'm I say can, I don't know? I don't know on this plant in particular, but it can impact the ability of insects to feed on those leaves.
Erin Garrett: 37:18So maybe those caterpillars are deterred, and no longer wanna feed on those leaves, or maybe they can't find them with the color changes. Right? Different things can happen in that way. So that's a possibility out there. In general, I like to plant wild type, but, there are benefits with the height.
Erin Garrett: 37:40Right? Keeping the height more formal, and you're still then not choosing, like, a non native grass. So in this case, right, a lot of our landscape grasses that we would put in are non native. Some of them have escaped and can be problematic. So some of our, like, miscanthus grasses, right, can can be problematic.
Erin Garrett: 38:01And so in this case, you're planting not that, but this, which in my mind is a step better. Right? In the benefits it can provide, in preventing potential invasion that could happen. So I would say check. I'd rather have you plant blackhawks than some of these others.
Erin Garrett: 38:21Right? But it goes back to your goals. What do you want in your garden? Is your goal to support pollinators? Then maybe you wanna have more of the wild type.
Erin Garrett: 38:30Is your goal more aesthetic and you're okay? Not necessarily having things eat your plants, which it's okay if they eat your plants. But I understand if they really eat your plants, it looks not great. Right? Then maybe you wanna do one of these cultivars.
Erin Garrett: 38:46So it all goes back to kind of your goals for your landscape and kind of where you wanna prioritize those. Right? But I'm interested on both of your thoughts on this discussion.
Emily Swihart: 39:00Well, I think, I guess, I think you just you did a really lovely job of kind of explaining, like, the pros and cons because that is how we think about it. And so, at least I do. Like, these cultivars, we don't have a full picture of how the changes, how the selections do impact their appeal to wildlife. And so we can kind of make, like, educated guesses, knowing what we know about how insects feed on other, like, dark leaved plants. Generally, that's more of, like, a defense mechanism that plants have adopted.
Emily Swihart: 39:29And so when we select for it, we can assume just based on that knowledge that that might be an outcome. But I also really appreciate you noting that there's this is, like, the middle ground. You know? Like, there we some of our, native plants and I'm gonna talk broadly, not just just about, blackhawks and and big blue. But broadly speaking, some of our native plants do not behave.
Emily Swihart: 39:56Like, they just don't stay where you want them to stay, or they get and we've talked about it on the podcast before. They just go crazy in a a low competition, often high nutrient setting where, like, we're mulching. You know, like, that's giving it a lot of nutrients. There's not a lot of competition. We are maintaining it really well, you know, by, you know, every year.
Emily Swihart: 40:20Maybe burning it, you know, like, freeing up the freeing it up to grow more fully. And they can just be a a maintenance challenge. Like, in a landscape, you are you are planting to hopefully enjoy. So my thoughts, I guess, and and my approach is that I like the middle ground. A lot of times, I will do, kind of a a combination.
Emily Swihart: 40:42My landscape has a combination. I'll try plants, you know, native plants, the straight species. If it doesn't behave, I will take it out. It will it will go. It will be edited out, and then I will try other things in that space.
Emily Swihart: 40:54But I enjoy this work also. Like, it's like a hobby for me. You know? So I, I appreciate that that's not everybody's, type of fun, is is putting in plants and observing and removing. So there's that.
Emily Swihart: 41:08I do just enjoy, like, the funness of the cultivars too. You know? Like, that is a that is a a dark leaved plant. That's unusual. So, like
Erin Garrett: 41:18Mhmm. Mhmm.
Emily Swihart: 41:19Perhaps I will plant it as a focal point and then have straight species elsewhere. And, I've mentioned on the on the, podcast before, I have a a few acres. And so I have, like, my manicured, very small, garden that has some, like, non natives, some cultivars, you know, just some trial stuff, like, nearby the house that I that are meant to be pretty. And then on the back 40, if you you know, it's not 40 acres. But elsewhere are these wild types.
Emily Swihart: 41:50You know? Like, I I just it's like you you go and be free. You you can misbehave out here. You can do what you are designed to do by nature, which is to compete. And so not everybody has that situation, but I appreciate you kinda mentioning the the in between, you know, that
Erin Garrett: 42:06There's a lot of nuance. Yeah. And I think it I have been there too. I planted gray goldenrod. I'm like, I need to have a goldenrod, but, like, we all know goldenrod.
Erin Garrett: 42:19So I was like, I'm gonna get the one that stays short and supposed to stay under two feet tall. K. I planted a one little plug two little plugs in the spring. And by the fall, they were three feet wide and four feet tall, and I went, nope. Gotta go.
Erin Garrett: 42:38So I pulled them out, and I put them in a pot. And every year, I get a few new little plants that, guess what, grow two feet tall in the pot, and they're contained, they do great there. But I was like, not gonna happen in my landscape. So there there definitely is you have to take it all with a grain of salt. Right?
Erin Garrett: 42:58And I accept my landscape is gonna look a little wild. I know that now. I know my plants get even two feet taller than I would like them to, but I'm trying other things like Chelsea chopping my plants back to try to keep them shorter and more bushy. Yeah. I tried that last year, and I'm gonna try multiple Chelsea chopping this year because I still got six foot tall New England aster even though I cut it back.
Erin Garrett: 43:20So, but I accept that. Right? And I'm okay with dealing with that extra maintenance most of the time. Sometimes I complain about it. But, yeah, that's not for everyone.
Erin Garrett: 43:30So there are situations, right, where you wanna have native plants, but you don't have the ability or the time to do the extra maintenance. So, for some that can be more aggressive, then maybe a cultivar is a better choice for you. Right? Chris is just waiting to jump into this Yes.
Chris Enroth: 43:52I agree. So I I think maybe the only thing to touch on is when people are looking at plants, read the labels. Perhaps a really good way to is to be an informed buyer of of plants and knowing the difference between the straight species, a cultivar, and a variety. And maybe we can throw genetically engineered, but that's usually that's that's a different show. But, you know, straight species, you're gonna see the scientific name, which is the genus and specific habitat.
Chris Enroth: 44:29If it's a cultivar, you're gonna see the little name and quotes. It's like a fun thing like blackhawks. And what cultivar indicates is that it is a it is a selection out of, like, a large kind of a a wild type plot, whatever the nursery grower is selecting in. But it does not come true from seeds, so a lot of times those genetics will revert back sometimes. And then we have varieties, which means that does come true from seeds.
Chris Enroth: 44:57So whatever trait was selected will be expressed in the the seed, the progeny of that plant. And so I I would just say, yeah, just read those plant tags, know the difference between the cultivar, variety, trait species. I try to stay away from varieties. And with cultivars, I since if my goal is pollinator visits to the flowers, then I'm going to invite avoid anything that manipulates that flower shape. And so I I will stay away from that even with cultivars.
Chris Enroth: 45:37I don't want double flowered this or that. I just want plain old flowers. And so yeah. But but, yeah, I just I kinda think about if it's a cultivar, you know, what results with that. Usually, it's just a reversion back to those wild genetics, but we we don't know because genetics are crazy and complicated.
Erin Garrett: 45:58Yep. Well, that was the other point too is, like, thinking long term. Right? If everyone's planting this one cultivar of this plant, right, just thinking about because then wildlife is gonna come and spread those plants around. Right?
Erin Garrett: 46:13So, like, it can have broader implications with the whole genetic pool, with the wild type in long term. So that's another thing to think about. Again, is those different what are your goals and what are you okay with? And not necessarily defaulting always to a cultivar. I know there are some I talk about how my garden's crazy, but I have some plants that do amazing.
Erin Garrett: 46:34They're wild type, they don't need any extra help or changes, and they do great. My butterfly milkweed behaves and is beautiful. My prairie smoke is amazing even though I'm too set for ourselves to plant it, but it's okay. It does fine. So maybe not defaulting to that too.
Erin Garrett: 46:50And, you know, your local extension office can help answer these questions. If you call in, you're like, I wanna plant wild type aromatic aster. And we're like, okay. Let's talk because you're gonna have thousands and thousands of seeds. Are you prepared for that?
Erin Garrett: 47:04So we have a lot more of that nuance, right, and can help answer those specific species questions on if the wild type how it does in a garden setting. That's what I'm trying to say. So, yeah. It's an interesting conversation. There's a lot of research potential.
Erin Garrett: 47:19There's a lot of research being done, and we're learning things. But what we're learning is a lot of the times, it's like cultivar by cultivar, and there's a lot out there. So it's hard to to have answers in that case. So
Emily Swihart: 47:36Well, did we miss I I wanna do some fun facts. But did before we get into that, did we miss anything about honestly, just, like, all the grasses? Because we've covered a bunch of them today.
Erin Garrett: 47:49All the grasses? I mean, we could talk for hours.
Emily Swihart: 47:54How about the big three?
Erin Garrett: 47:59I don't know. I think we did a pretty good overview. Indian grass is one I'm not really gonna recommend planting in, like, a home landscape area, because that one can spread maybe more aggressively than big blue. So, watch out for that one. But, yeah, switchgrass, I think, is a great great option.
Erin Garrett: 48:23And I'll stop there because I can talk grass all day.
Emily Swihart: 48:28We'll have to have a part two sometime, Erin. Yeah. But we did have in our notes just some fun facts about Big Bluestem. Do you guys have any did you find any fun facts that you wanted to share? Kinda random, you know, need to knows?
Erin Garrett: 48:44Big Bluestem is the state grass of Illinois. Woo hoo. If you didn't know, woo hoo, we're, not every state has a state grass, so we're special. But we do have that, designation, and that was, oh, in 1989, if I look at my notes correctly, Big Blue, was chosen. And we're not the only state that has Big Blue Stem as their state grass.
Erin Garrett: 49:11Missouri, right next door to us, also has Big Blue Stem as their state grass. I don't know who copied who, but we we both share that that designation. So if you're into state symbols, big bluestem is one of them. That's my fun fact. Chris, do you have a fun fact?
Chris Enroth: 49:32I did did we say big Bluestem, little Bluestem, not related? They are
Erin Garrett: 49:37We did not.
Chris Enroth: 49:38They are not even in the same genus.
Erin Garrett: 49:41So
Chris Enroth: 49:42yeah. That's
Emily Swihart: 49:44a really important fun fact. Good job.
Erin Garrett: 49:48Just gotta keep everyone on their toes. Right? Common names, confusing all the time. Yes. Does it have a blue stem?
Erin Garrett: 49:55No. Is little blue related to big blue? Not that closely. Little broomsedge is more closely related to big blue than little blue is. They're in the same genus, and broomsedge is a grass, not a sedge.
Erin Garrett: 50:09So, again, keep everyone on their toes.
Emily Swihart: 50:13You just keep making the the point. Scientific names are important.
Erin Garrett: 50:18They're fun. They're fun. Scientific names. You know?
Emily Swihart: 50:22Yeah. I just in in prep for this, I had found that and I I was kinda looking at some, like, indigenous uses. And this we've mentioned this on the podcast before. It is sometimes hard to find reliable sources. And so I'm not going to say this with a 100% certainty, but I did find that there was an obvious preference for grazing on big blue over some of the other grasses, by wildlife, some of the big wildlife that used to roam, the tall grass prairie.
Emily Swihart: 50:54And I thought that's really fascinating. And I had wondered about that as I've managed, different, you know, landscapes. Like, what, you know, what were they eating? Like, what you know, when there was elk and bison and, you know, a lot more kind of, like, large grazing animals. And so Big Blue was one of them, and I liked that.
Emily Swihart: 51:12So Mhmm. Yeah. Well,
Chris Enroth: 51:18that was a lot of great information about Andropogon gerardii, also known as Big Bluestem. We talked about blackhawks today from the Perennial Plant Association plant of the year. The Good Growing podcast production of University of Illinois Extension edited this week by Emily Swihart Erin, thank you so much for joining us today, chatting about Big BlueStim. And if people want to hear you more, let's remind everyone where could they hear you more on, say, a a fancy podcast also.
Erin Garrett: 51:49Oh, yeah. We haven't talked about that yet. Mhmm. So besides all the grass ID stuff that I do, I'm also one of the hosts of the everyday environment podcast, which is not just a podcast. It's also a blog and social media videos and some webinars and every now and then a Facebook q and a, live, which we just did recently.
Erin Garrett: 52:11So, you can find us, everyday environment, kind of all the the major podcast listening platforms.
Chris Enroth: 52:19Excellent. And, Emily, thank you for being here as always every single week chatting about the big blue stem and the bison.
Emily Swihart: 52:27Always my what?
Chris Enroth: 52:29And the bison. It
Emily Swihart: 52:33is always my pleasure. And, Erin, yes, thank you for joining us. This was a a great, kind of tour of some of the grasses that we can incorporate in our landscape. So really appreciate your expertise. Yeah.
Emily Swihart: 52:44No problem. Yeah. And, Chris, since Ken's not here, I'm gonna go ahead and say, let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth: 52:51Oh, we shall do this again next week, and we're gonna put Ken in charge of everything. We're gonna be getting hot in here because well, not only is summer really starting to kick off, but we're gonna be talking about hot peppers with doctor Jack McCoy from U of I. So looking forward to that one. Well, listeners, thank you for doing us to do best and that is listening or if you watched us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.
Chris Enroth: 53:23University of Illinois Extension. We just need more bison in our yards. That'll help.
Emily Swihart: 53:31A 100%.
Chris Enroth: 53:33Yep. Also, they can hurt people, so don't go pet them. Absolutely. On vacation this summer and you happen to see a bison. Do not pet the fluffy cows.
Erin Garrett: 53:45Nope.
Disembodied voice: 54:48University of Illinois Extension.