( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden ) Legend has it that she was being driven back to their ranch after a speaking engagement and saw a rancher in the field mowing down thousands of wildflowers. She stopped and struck a deal with him...he would leave the wildflowers alone and she would pay him rent for the field and send people out in the fall to harvest the seeds. Most of the highways in Texas have no-mow zones because there is almost always some wildflower growing from early Spring through Fall.
I wish more places would do the no-mowing zone. I don't know why I didn't take the time to snap a couple of photos near my brother's place.
The state highway that goes into our nearest town is lined with wildflowers. It is a "no-mow zone" as are most state highways. We now have Mexican Blanket, Indian Paintbrush, Texas Bluebonnets, and Primroses growing in our drainage ditch. I gathered seed, spread it around, and have a deal with the county mowing crew that if we maintain the right-of-way, they won't mow. We have wildflowers in our pasture, but it's so nice to have them out by the roadway where passerbys can see and enjoy them.
Thank goodness for no-mow areas like this as they are a real benefit to wildlife. Bees and butterflies love them and small mammals make their homes in them. Now that most of our wildflower meadows have disappeared it's essential we have plenty of areas like this to help compensate for their loss.
Now, besides the no mow zones they are making no spray zones because they started spraying weed killers which does not distinguish between weeds and flowers. I saw a truck spraying along the interstate earlier this year and it didn't last very long before it turned and left. Someone must have complained,. dooley
This is such a good action. It is nice to see someone taking positive action. The no-mow areas would be a very good idea for here.
What a great idea! I wish our local council had no-mow zones :'( Sometimes I am sorely tempted to throw some aquilegia seeds onto the field margin where we walk our dogs,just to relieve the sterile green monotony of the mown grass...
I have a had a wish to become a 'guerilla gardener', planting low maintenance gardens in public no-man zones. There is such an area near where I live. It is a small triangular patch of land in the middle of an intersection of 2 roads. Someone planted species daylilies there long ago (or they self-sowed?). I have long had a fantasy of adding to that planting other daylilies.
