Rhus copallina 'Prairie Flame' will perform as required in the situation described. It will take time to "fill in" if density is a requirement, but it is not so vigorous a plant as will defy mowing. It is not so vigorous as to prevent other things from growing with it either - so, if you want a "pure stand" you might have to do some weeding or discouragement of other plants volunteering amongst it as it get established. I am quite happy with my stand of 'Prarie Flame', which I have been growing for almost 10 years on extremely poor quality B/C horizon droughty clay soils.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences with Buck roses and enticing me to other varieties. You, evil rose people, you! I am very pleased to hear about PS. As I mentioned, it was an impulse buy and never thought about it or never paid any attention to it. I was so fascinated with the large 4 inch bloom with intoxicatingly sweet fragrance. The bush was in a 2 gallon container and about 1 ft tall. When I go back to the nursery and see the roses, I have a better idea about how they are. My garden contains some Buck roses also - Carefree Beauty, Earth Song, Aunt Honey, and Blue Skies. All the roses are indeed carefree except BS. BS had very strong citrus fragrance and acted like HT, but he decided to not grow.

The hill does not look so bad so I think you have a lot of options. The phlox and the muhly grass would like nice. Sedums will be able to handle dryness as will bee balm. Various prairie flowers would probably look great.

OK, I think I get it froggy. I haven't read 'Miracle Under the Oaks' yet but i kind of get your drift. I think I see signs of it in our back field that is only bushhogged once a year. The last picture from my original post was taken in that field. There I see butterflyweed and partridge pea and mountain mint and other possible original remnants of what was once there. I know that the "Cedar Glades" and the "Big Barrens" are part of this area where I live and there are all sorts of prairie remnants in clearings between forested areas. Knowing the history has sparked my interest in restoring some of these areas in my small way. So let me ask you, how would you manage the area I'm asking about, the sinkhole area that has been so abused and disturbed. It is not forested, though it may have been at one time, and it was probably never plowed, given the steepness of the hillsides and the fact that a sinkhole lies at the bottom of those hillsides. Historically sinkholes were left alone, or used as dumps. Our underground streams cause many sinkholes to just give way, and as farmers here know now as they did then, they can swallow up livestock. In fact there was a newspaper article last year about a horse that had to be rescued from someone's field when a sinkhole just opened up one day and the unlucky horse ended up at the bottom of it! So I'm thinking that there may in fact be native grasses and forbs that like our calcareous soils and are associated with sinkhole areas. I think Mammoth Cave has some info on that but I have not checked it out. I've also never been there, caves kind of creep me out! Anyway, do you think our method of cutting and burning will help? One or the other? What about using Roundup in the early spring to get rid of the blackberry and poke? I did read an article about using Roundup early enough in the season to kill the cool season grasses yet not disturb the warm season grasses. I think timing was crucial in their findings. Their emphasis was on pastures but some info is still relevant. If you'd like, check out the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: converting pastures to tall grass prairies