A native grass, take two
Click for greater sharpness and considerably larger size.
—Tell me verbatim.
Panicum virgatum.
—That’s which grass?
That’s switchgrass.
—That’s a rich grass.
The 29th of December.*
—A season that I’ll remember.
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* In 2011, I should say,
which makes it a year ago today.
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If pointers on nature photography are what you seek,
Check out items 6 and 15 in About My Technique.
© 2012 Steven Schwartzman
I like switch grass. It’s pretty and I use it as a filler here and a filler there. Actually I can cut it several times and I feed the cuttings to my pet goat. I leave the last growth for birds to eat the tiny seeds. I don’t have any bluestem though and I hope to rectify that one of these days.
petspeopleandlife
December 29, 2012 at 1:02 pm
It’s good to find someone else who likes the way switchgrass looks. Unlike you, I haven’t used the grass in any way (other than to take pictures of it).
Steve Schwartzman
December 29, 2012 at 4:05 pm
In all the time I’ve been looking at the maps to see where a particular plant flourishes, I’ve never seen one like the switchgrass map. It covers the entire country, except for CA, OR and WA – perhaps one or two other states. I was curious why it hasn’t taken root there, too. I turned up this really interesting article about attempts in California to establish switchgrass, both as an alternative livestock feed and as a more efficient energy source than corn.
In a few more years, switchgrass may take over the map!
shoreacres
December 30, 2012 at 9:16 am
Ah, the ethanol boondoggle (which some have called welfare for agribusiness), but the only politicizing I’ll do here is to point out the motto that Panicum virgatum offers: “Let’s switch to switchgrass.”
I, too, noticed the unusually broad range of switchgrass, which extends into Mexico as well as Canada. It’s a well-established grass, all right—and one trend that didn’t start in California.
Steve Schwartzman
December 30, 2012 at 9:49 am