Watching the grass grow

Last fall, I underplanted daffodils in our small apple orchard.

One hundred bulbs went into the ground — easier said than done, as the bulb digger we bought expressly for the purpose broke on the third bulb (booo) — all in a quest to recreate one of my favorite places. One of my parents’ neighbors had a deeply wooded hillside rising behind their house. Usually intensely private, one spring they invited us to hike up the hill behind their house in mid-March, when the maple buds were glowing. Up the hill, in a shallow glade, grew thousands of daffodils beneath the hickories, oaks and maples. Magic.

In all likelihood, that glad was once a meadow, or maybe a homestead. Someone had once planted daffodils, and over time they had naturalized throughout the shallow bowl of land. And miraculously, here they still were, long after the house was gone and the trees had reclaimed the meadow.

This year, after only a few months in the ground, the daffodils beneath our apple trees were lovely but spindly … and further suppressed by a surprise seven-inch snowfall two days after they all burst into bloom.

To ensure they come back strong next year, it’s important that we left the daffodil leaves to grow until they died back on their own. Their photosynthesizing action would feed the bulbs, which would sit quietly beneath the soil for most of the year before springing back up next March.

While we waited for the daffodil foliage to die back, the grass in our yard grew long, revealing native wildflowers and herbs that were always hiding among the regular ol’ bluegrass. Dandelions, of course, and white clover and plantain (Plantago major, not the starchy banana-like fruit), as well as ragwort, goldenrod, violets, Queen Anne’s Lace, wild carrot, buttercups, lyreleaf sage, common sowthistle, field pussytoes and fleabane daisies. Other grasses raised their heads, too, rapidly growing plumes of beautiful seed: prairie junegrass, california oat grass, canadian bluejoint, tall fescue, common velvet grass, and little bluestem.

Technically speaking, a lot of these beautiful plants would be called weeds. But that’s only for the uninitiated. The wise know that plantain is one of the healthiest greens you can eat, rich in fatty acids, antioxidants, minerals and vitamins. Goldenrod and dandelion make lovely dyes (goldenrod is gold, and dandelion makes a surprising pearlescent pink), and, like violets, can be used to make healthy soaps and balms.

After weeks of admiring the miniature meadow and the wildlife that it brought in (among other things, finches, rabbits, bees, ladybugs and … let’s be honest, an astounding number of ticks) we cut the meadow this weekend. I’m sorry to see it go (ticks aside), but it was remarkable to witness the sudden burst of biodiversity in a fifteen-by-thirty foot patch of plain old yard. Next year, we’ll welcome the meadow back with open arms.

This is the secret of many lawns: wildflowers and wildness are still there, just beneath the surface. Let the grass grow for a little while.