As the days shorten and winter approaches, nature has taken on a bleaker appearance. Deciduous trees have lost their leaves, wildflowers have gone to seed, and many plants have taken on a straw to brown color as their aboveground growth dies for the season. How does your lawn look? One place that...

Before the first hard frost came at the end of October, I planted many native plants around our new house. I brought some of my favorite plants with me in our move and was determined to get them planted this fall. One of the pots I brought with me had a Little Bluestem plant in it that I have been...

While identifying plants at a prairie reconstruction last month, I came across a new grass that I’ve not seen before. Unfortunately, it is an invasive grass called Small Carpetgrass (Arthraxon hispidus). According to ...

One of the reasons plant identification is so important is to help us tell the difference between plants that contribute to a healthy ecosystem and those that interrupt those interactions. Certain plants are exceptionally good at causing problems for natural communities, and require intervention...

It’s difficult not to notice grasses at this time of year – all of the large warm-season grasses seem to be in bloom. Have you taken a closer look at grass flowers? They are amazing to see in bloom, when the anthers and stigmas are visible. Grasses, as you may know, are wind pollinated. Unlike...

If someone asked me to name the most iconic plants of the tallgrass prairie, I would start with the grasses. Who could talk about a prairie without mentioning grass? The top three grasses that scream “tallgrass prairie” are Big Bluestem, Indian Grass, and Switchgrass. Why? These are all robust,...

Last week I attended the North American Prairie Conference in Altoona, Iowa. Shoutout to the blog readers I met there! As is typical for me, on my drive to the conference I was identifying the plants I could see on the roadsides. One grass in particular was ubiquitous in the landscape – Smooth...

A few weeks ago I was leading a plant identification hike in a restored prairie. Naturally in a prairie system, there are a lot of grasses to identify! We saw some tallgrass species as well as some weedy grasses. We also saw one of the 30+ species of Panic grasses that we have in Illinois, ...

Last week while leading a guided hike through a prairie restoration, I was able to observe numerous species of grasses – both those that are desirable in a restoration, and those that are remnants of previous land uses. While I saw native Prairie Dropseed, Switchgrass, Big Bluestem, and Indiangrass...

As someone who pays close attention to plants, weeding becomes an interesting chore. Instead of just looking for plants that are different than what I am trying to grow, I find it fun to identify all of them (and photograph them!). Talk about making a simple task more complicated! While weeding a...

As we enter May, many cool-season grasses are beginning to flower, which makes them a bit easier to identify. One such grass is a European pasture and hay grass called Orchard Grass, Dactylis glomerata. This non-native grass has been used in agriculture for centuries and can persist in old...

This time of year, I start getting emails with questions about how to identify grasses that people find growing in their yard. After reviewing pictures, oftentimes the grass they want to know more about actually turns out to be a sedge. Sedges are grass-like plants, but they have some distinct...

When I was a kid, we had guinea pigs as pets, Hershey, Graham, and Tristan. One regular part of their diet was hay. Each pig absolutely loved eating the fluffy little grass pieces included in the hay – it turns out those favorite pieces were Timothy. Timothy, Phleum pratense, is a popular...

A couple of weeks ago I was working in a food donation garden, prepping raised beds in anticipation of planting early spring crops. Some of the raised beds were covered in weeds that needed to be removed. One of them happened to be Annual Bluegrass, Poa annua. This grass already had an...

It might be difficult to imagine that even in the middle of winter, certain weeds have gotten a jumpstart on growth for the spring. Annual plants complete their life cycle in one year and are often divided into winter annuals and summer annuals. Several grasses fall into each of these categories....

Even during the coldest of winter days, one grass continues to boast green foliage – Giant Cane. Giant Cane (Arundinaria gigantea) is a unique grass because it is the only native species of bamboo found in Illinois. Once widespread throughout the bottomland forests of southern Illinois,...