Goodbye to the Wildflowers

The riverbank this week since the city did its magic.

 We've lived in our current house for nearly 34 years. When we bought it the riverbank of the Arkansas River was a shambles, but the bike path was going in. Soon things were evened out and there was a wide expanse at the top before it sloped down to the river and the bike path. Because the kids were small we put in a fence, more to keep them corralled than to keep them out of the river. (My advice, "If you fall in, remember to stand up.") The area between our fence and slant of the riverbank appeared to be ours to maintain.

Through the years this plot of land became part of my mowing routine. To mow our entire yard usually took me nearly two hours with a walk behind mower. During this time I had much time to think I'm really not that fond of mowing the yard and especially not the bank, the city's part. Until three weeks ago I've never seen the city mowers even look at this part, and certainly not mow it.

Mexican Hat

In 1996, Debbie had an internship with Senator Kassebaum so Lee and I and the other kids decided we'd drive to DC and bring Debbie home. As we made our way to and from DC, including many stops, I noticed that there were daylilies along I-70. I thought if they can grow along the interstate, surely they can grow along the river. I knew I wasn't going to water them, but I'm thinking I don't think they get watered along the highway either. Soon I'd ordered daylilies and daffodils from White Flower Farms. It wasn't easy, but eventually I had them planted. The daffodils prospered, but the daylilies didn't like the competition from the Bermuda grass. Wildflowers seemed like they'd be more inclined to survive.

Indian Blanket

I worked again to prepare the ground and ordered a meadow from Wildseed Farms in Texas. The results were good and I no longer had so much ground to mow. Not everything survived, but Mexican Hat pictured above prospered. Well, at least until last week.

This year the flowers on the bank weren't as tall as that pictured above - it looked more like the photo at right. Three weeks ago, the city mower came up on that spot and mowed and carefully went around my plot in the center. But last week a different mower came up and mowed everything as you can tell in the first photo. I went out and asked why after all these years they were mowing down my wildflowers. He stopped to talk to me, but he said the city didn't like it because it attracted trash. I was astounded and I said in the 30 years I've lived here, no one outside of me has ever mowed that part of the bank and that I'd put in the wildflowers so I wouldn't have to mow so much.

Thanks for listening.