July/ August/ September flowers: Aster cordifolius (heart leaved aster), Aster macrophylla (large leafed aster), Aster divaricatus (White Wood Aster), Solidago caesia (blue stemmed goldenrod), Solidago flexicaulis (zig zag goldenrod), Helianthus divaricatus (woodland sunflower), Aralia racemosa (spikenard), Heuchera (coral bells), Chelone glabra (Turtlehead), Circaea lutetiana (EnchanterÂs Nightshade), Eupatorium rugosum (White Snakeroot) Interesting berries and foliage in summer/ fall: Maianthemum racemosum (False SolomonÂs Seal),Caulophyllum thalictroides (blue cohosh), Actaea rubra, Actaea pachypoda (Red and White Baneberry) Interesting foligage summer/ fall: Uvularia grandiflora (Bellwort), maidenhair fern, sensitive fern, Asarum canadense (ginger), Phlox divaricata (wild blue phlox), Dicentra exima (bleeding heart), Hydrophyllum virginianum (Virginia Water-leaf),Podophyllum peltatum (Mayapple),Thalictrum dioicum (Early Meadow-rue), Tiarella cordifolia (Foamflower), Waldsteinia fragarioides (Barren Strawberry)

Blue grama will green up a little earlier in the spring and turn brown a little later in the fall than buffalo grass, but it's still a warm season grass, so it won't be green as long as a cool season grass will. The blue grama is just a small part of my lawn, little patches (not even a foot square) here and there in the hellstrip. I may have more to show next summer if the dormant seeding works, or next fall if I have to reseed and hand water. I water three times a summer, but I do have areas that go dormant. I also overseeded into a KBG/Fescue lawn so a lot of the issues with dormancy are due to those grasses. I'm hoping the natives will spread and take over as time goes on. Actually, I've got some non natives mixed in with natives. Here are the grasses I've planted and some comments on each: Western wheatgrass: difficult to get started. Seems to do best with freeze/thaw cycles. It is a bluish green in color. It stays green longer without water than the other grasses, but I've read that it's more likely to die in dormancy. If you water a few times a year, I don't think it'll be a problem. IT develops very deep roots, so make sure you water as deeply as possible. Large seeds (really almost like wheat kernels). Spreads via rhizomes. Streambank wheatgrass: establishes easier than western wheatgrass. pale green in color, so it's lighter than KBG, but not a bad color for a lawn (IMO, anyway). Very soft and fine bladed. Seeds are about the same size as western wheatgrass. Spreads via rhizomes. Sheep fescue: fine bladed, closer in color to traditional lawn grasses than the other options. Develops an extensive root system and has many defenses against drought. It will stay alive with no additional water, but will need water to stay green. Even with water, it may go dormant in high heat. Much smaller seeds than streambank and western wheatgrass. A bunch grass, but it spreads a little via tillering (new plants right next to the old ones). Blue grama: I've only got a little of this, but if I remember correctly, it germinates fairly quickly in the right conditions. It's light green (a lot like streambank wheatgrass) and has very soft blades. It does an amazing job of staying green with very little water. It sticks out from the others in the heat of the summer, because that's when it takes off. I saw a green patch of native wild grama along the roadside near the end of summer (no rain to speak of and no irrigation in that area, so it had been dry for two months). It's a warm season grass, so it's dormant in the winter, but it greens up faster than buffalo grass. seeds are like dust. A bunch grass, but tillers a bit if mowed. Those are the natives. Now for the non natives. Crested wheatgrass: easy to establish. It's sort of yellow green the first year, but greens up later. seeds are smaller than sheep fescue seeds but not as small as grama. Fine bladed. Most varieties are bunch grasses, but some varieties (roadcrest and Ephraim are two that I remember) will spread slowly via rhizomes. Palestine strawberry clover: Very similar to Dutch white clover in looks, but the flower has a little bit of pink or red tint. It isn't quite as drought tolerant as Dutch white, but does better in alkaline soils. There are other varieties of strawberry clover, but my understanding is that the Palestine is the most drought tolerant. Spreads via stolons and flowers. Seeds are round and about the size of radish seeds. Fairly easy to establish. The flowers can attract bees and if you use weed be gone or other broadleaf weed killers, you'll kill the clover. Low growing. Spreads via seeds and stolons. I thought I had posted pictures, but I can't find them. I'll try to get some posted.

Crocus does well in a lawn, as does aconite. I'm thinking that galanthus (snowdrop) would also do well, but I've never seen it tried and the flowers are rather plain. Winter aconite and snowdrop are some of the earliest flowers in the garden, usually flowering slightly before the early snow crocus. All are short enough that they'll tolerate being mowed--the leaves will simply stay up longer. But you'd never be able to blanket spray an herbicide while the bulbs are active as it'll damage or kill the flowers. The bulbs are active during the green leaf season, through April, and again in October through December. Hyacinth is a bit late and a bit tall for the lawn, plus the paddle-shaped leaves are definitely going to stand out as the lawn returns. But if that's your bliss, it's worth a shot. Grape hyacinth would be a possibility if you can hold off on mowing until after the flowers bloom, and it'd be rather striking. I use it throughout the gardens.

Thanks for sharing this BP. I have been looking into a way to replace my tired, worn out, and crappy looking KBG with something much more suited to our climate. It seems work surrounding the native grass lawns focuses on buffalo and blue grama. Fine grasses (I use a lot of blue grama in my landscaping) but I have always thought that there had to be others. This whole area, as you said, was prairie with a seemingly endless array of choices. The first one the came to mind was western wheat, which grows extensively across the Front Range. The reason it came to mind is because it is a sod forming grass. But it's also very tall and coarse, regular mowing may help make it more "flat," but I have trouble imagining walking across a lawn of western wheat barefoot. Recently we seeded a lot of Canada rye at work, so I started looking into that, too. It's a bunchgrass though, and I'm unsure if consistent mowing forces tillering like it does with blue grama. It's also extremely tall and coarse. The absentee neighbor's lawn has been taken over by smooth brome. It looks gorgeous right now, but when it gets cut, its very "stemmy" rather than leafy. I am also not a huge fan of the fact smooth brome has overtaken most of what's left of the native xeric tallgrass prairie that we have here, forcing out the community of big and little bluestem, switch and Indian grass and turning it into a monoculture. USDA calls Indian grass a "rhizomatus bunchgrass" so mowing might encourage tillering with that. but once again, my main concern is the coarseness and that cutting taller grasses will lead to "stemminess", although, if done regularly, it might not. It's also warm-season however. Another thing is that some grasses don't respond as well to cutting as others. For example, not that it would otherwise make a good turfgrass, but you could not repeatedly mow down little bluestem through the growing season without killing it. I will be looking into the fesuces that you mentioned, they sound promising. Do you know how all these stand up to traffic?