Giant Invasion

It was about four years ago when I first introduced native prairie plants to our yard.  Visits to the Living Prairie Museum were always popular so growing our own prairie plants seemed like a natural extension.  It has been a learning experience for all of us – growing native praire plants was new to me too.

The plants on the little hill were added first – Yarrow and Giant Hyssop on one side of the tunnel;

The Yarrow has always been the first to show up each spring – I love it’s fern like leaves. This year, although the Yarrow grew first, the Giant Hyssop has taken over!  It is even coming up  between the logs and through any other crack it can find;

On the other side of the tunnel we originally planted the Obedient Plant and the Cone Flower.  The Cone Flower didn’t do well and hasn’t shown up at all for the past two years.  We added some Pussy Toes and some Pasture Sage – another one of my favorites with a wonderful texture and aroma too;

But wait, that plant on the bottom left looks suspiciously like a Giant Hyssop – it was not planted over here;

We haven’t planted anything in the planters yet – usually we just put in a few annuals or maybe some beans.  Right now they contain nothing but weeds, and a Giant Hyssop?

Over in the garden I planted some Sweetgrass by the water barrel – no other plants seemed to like that spot.  The Sweetgrass does and has now taken over the whole North side of the garden;

The rest of the garden is reserved for our veggies and herbs and has no native prairie plants.  Wait, what is that?  Can it be another Giant Hyssop?

What do you think?