In late spring, Leadplant bloomed for the first time in my garden. I felt as if an archetype of the ancient prairie had come and greeted me in person.
I’d never seen the flowers before. I wasn’t really expecting gorgeous blossoms on a plant with a name like Leadplant. It sounds drab. But when another gardener gave me seeds, I planted them. I wanted to do my part to preserve native prairie species from extinction.
It takes patience
Leadplants can take four years or longer before they bloom. My little plants waited six years. Then one morning I noticed spikes of stunning purple and orange.
Wow!
Leadplant is tough. Its roots reach 20 feet into the soil. It survives droughts and comes back again after wildfires. It makes good fodder for cattle and can endure some grazing. However, if it’s overgrazed or repeatedly plowed under, it eventually dies out.
Raising Leadplants from seed
When the first seedlings came up in the nursery bed, I transplanted them into my prairie flower garden. I was excited.
Leadplant is a legume, a member of the pea family. Just as people like peas, so do deer and rabbits. The animals ate every one of my seedlings to the ground. Then they pulled up the roots and ate those too.
The following year, I started over, and this time I put a little wire-mesh fence around each seedling. I left the fences in place until the fourth year. By then Leadplants are less tasty.
Named for its leaves
Leadplant leaves are silvery gray, with a metallic appearance. Depending on how the light catches them, the leaves look as if they are dusted with white powder. Under a microscope, tiny, wooly hairs come into view, especially on the underside of the leaf. These are what give the metallic appearance to the plant.
They are survivors
An individual plant, with its 20-feet-deep roots, can live for hundreds of years.
I like to think that the Leadplants I raised in my prairie flower garden will outlive me. Outlive my garden, my house, and even the current use pattern of this land. Some time, in a future age, I hope someone who loves plants will be walking on this ground with a friend, and she’ll say with surprise, “Oh, look, there’s Leadplant growing all around us! I wonder if they’ve always been here.”
Kudos! Good for you to have gone to so much trouble to revive an iconic prairie specie. May it, and you, thrive.