Prairie in a Can

A couple of days ago we were out at Cayler Prairie and my classmate Alex observed that he’d seen several similar species in the prairie across the street from our cabins. Dr. S., our professor, scoffed, “That’s no prairie; it’s someone’s wildflower garden.” He acknowledged that both areas may contain some of the same plants, but said that a prairie should have more than just a few native species.

To show us what he meant, the next day Dr. S. walked us across the street to the field. It did immediately appear to have different composition than the prairies that we’d been tromping through for the last couple of weeks. I recognized a few species: little bluestem, daisy fleabane, and June grass. Dr. S. pointed out many species that wouldn’t appear in native Iowa prairies and explained that the field had been planted with “prairie in a can,” a seed mix from somewhere in Colorado. He explained that a true restoration project takes into consideration the grasses and flowers that would appear naturally in the area. If possible, a prairie is planted with seeds harvested from a nearby, established prairie. To him, this re-seeded field could not be called prairie; instead it was someone’s experimentation with non-native wildflowers.


Dr. S. agreed that the blooms in the field were beautiful, bright showy flowers, but also said that he didn’t think that some of the plants would survive for more than a few years. The non-native flowers included blue flax, lance-leaf coreopsis, lupine, Indian blanket, Shasta daisies, and even musk thistle. Despite the field's failure to be an Iowan prairie, I was glad to it was there to enjoy, almost like a public botanical garden.