Nurturing Native Investigation 2017-003: Assorted Grasses

Unidentified Grass- seems rather "weedy" but the flowers are kinda pretty.

A substantial part of this “project” was to identify and categorize what was already on the hill.  Then I got to the family Poeceae, that’s grass to most of us, including me before I looked it up.  When I started cataloging and identifying the grass on the hill I had a change of heart.  There are a couple of plants on the hill that I take just one look know what they are.  “Bermuda grass!”  “Wild oats!”   “Mexican feather grass!”  “Cheat grass!”  All listed as noxious weeds, invasive plants, or plants to remove from canyonlands.  Easy Peasy!  Then it gets harder…  “Not identified escaped ornamental grass #1.” “Not identified escaped ornamental grass #2.”  “Not identified escaped ornamental grass #3.”  No pampas grass!!  Check!!  A small victory for the hill!

Bermuda Grass (Cynodon dactylon) Originally from the Middle East.
Arived via Bermuda - hence the name

Wild Oats (Avena fatua)

Do not sow these!  Your mother would not approve!

Cheat Grass (Bromus Tectorum)

Biological crusts may slow the spread of this grass.

Stay tuned for Summer Vacation to Sedona and a special "crust" episode!

Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima) meet morning glory  (Convolvulaceae)

Clearly this is the gardening equivalent of two fashion victims colliding.

Unidentified Grass- Once a dignified ornamental gone rogue, or just a rogue?

Ahhh grass, easy to spot, but not so easy to categorize.

There is a lot of diversity in the grass plant family, practically a plant dynasty, including plants that make up lawns to bamboo.  It is the fifth largest plant family and is estimated to constitute 40.5% of the land area of Earth (not including Greenland and Antarctica- according to Wikipedia).  Grass surrounds us, of course there is some on the hill…  Naturally!  The thought of identifying all the stragglers felt more like a thesis than a hobby.  It was overwhelming!!

So back to the project, I wanted to identify things and THEN decide what to do about them…  well, when it comes to grass on the hill the NEED to identify is murky.  There may be a few native grasses, but growing on a hillside, what does that help?  There is conflicting information on the internet about grass and its ability to control erosion.  I decided to trust a go to resource for native planting, Las Pilitas Nursery, and take their advice on erosion control. 

http://www.laspilitas.com/garden/howto/slope.html

High-level summary of this great article- Grasses in general are not good for a hillside!  Las Pilitas exact words were “Slopes that were planted with grass have GREATER EROSION than anything other than bare ground (even dead sticks beat grass!)”  Grass may grow well, grass may come up fast from seed, but for erosion control and developing a natural plant community (my ultimate goals) grass is not my friend.    So ultimately, the grass needs to be removed, controlled, and replaced with a diversity of plants that better deter erosion and build a plant community.  Dried grasses are also a what I refer to as “tinder,” seasonal tinder as central part of the hill does not sound wise….  

All grasses are sentenced to “Impending eradication,” or rather I will work to control their reseeding and spreading potential, height, "tinder value," and slowly remove and replace them as I work across the hill.  Grass still controls erosion better than bare ground, and I don’t have enough dead sticks.