Finally, with the warm weather, I’m starting to see more flowers. The best new flower I found was Cream Wild Indigo blooming on the cliff behind the house.
I raised some seedlings and planted them there a few years ago – one plant was actually in bloom, and several more were nearly blooming.

And, when I walked through West Center Valley Prairie, I saw several more that are going to bloom. It’s exciting to see some of our planted prairies maturing.

The lupines I planted near the house are all blooming.

Violet Wood Sorrel is blooming in the woods.

I’m sure the areas where it’s growing used to be savanna – I wish I had something that could vaporize all the invading trees and bushes so it would instantly return to prairie.

Here are a few more of the flowers I saw:

Fringed Puccoon on the lower part of Big View Prairie

Downy Paintbrush on the point of Big View Prairie

Showy Orchis along Western Valley Road

Several areas I cleared last year had rosettes of Prairie Ragwort. Now the Ragwort is beginning to bloom – nice to know that clearing even those small areas is helpful.

Prairie plants are coming back along the edge of the cliff behind the house where they cleared some woods to make the house site. There were hundreds of blossoms of Blue-eyed Grass, and a few Hoary Puccoon blooming this week.

I also found two new plants for the farm inventory – one last week and one this week. Last week’s was Pagoda Dogwood, Cornus alternifolia – on the top the hill next to Indian Grass Prairie. And this week’s find was American Black Currant, Ribes americanum.