Tuesday, May 22, 2012

eastern gamagrass III

my clumps of eastern gamagrass ( well...can you really "own" a plant? probably not much more than a cat...but i planted the seeds and i've done he maintenance work since 2009 so i get to be a bit proprietary ) have seed heads in various stages of development, from those still well down in the proaxes to some fully developed terminal spears....the timing isn't terribly surptising...one developed a seed head in early june last year and the other followed in july...but the number that are developing has me wondering...altogether they produced four seed heads in 2011...i count twenty proaxes today...admittedly not all of them have emerging seed heads...yet..but once again i'm wondering if that extreme warmth we had in march is part of the reason for the burgeoning of reproductive structures...the only way to tell is another season really...one without eighty degree march days to use as a control...and who knows what 2013 will be like?...whatever the cause it looks like a bumper crop of gamagrass seeds this season that i will be replanting around my yard ( among other pl;aces ) in an effort to get some to grow at home...gamagrass is not an easy plant to establish...those three plants represent ten percent of what i planted there in fall 2009...and so far that is the only place i have been able to establish them...if i can grow teosinte here on e would think i would be able to grow gamagrass too...we'll try again in the fall.

2 comments:

  1. other than feeding buffalo...what does one do with gamma grass? just wondering

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  2. admire its well formed leaves and its exuberant ( if slow ) growth...the reason it's in the garden is it is, depending on whose side you're on in the corn wars, considered as a possible ancestor to maize...the g w beadle, huigh iltus people will have none of this, however mary eubanks insists it is true...i have tried desperately to remain above the fray but have been reluctantly forced to remove at least one abusive comment from this blog over it because some folks are mildly arrogant and insensitive in their views...i have considered invoking a comment moderation system but this seems extreme to me...people may insult me on their own blogs...i will simply delete them when they are rat bastards on mine

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