Speaking of leaving things undone …

My sheep experiment didn’t work and I don’t have an animal to eat the grass, so I decided to declare my lawn a nature preserve and stop mowing.  You can see what it is like in the pictures.  I didn’t only stop mowing.  I also gathered seeds when I ride my bike past flower beds on the median strips for my wild garden.

I scatter them and some things have come up. I don’t know most of the plants but some are familiar.  Morning glories and marigolds grow down here and I found some seeds from them.  One of the most aggressive volunteer plants is “Maria sem vergonha.”  This means Maria w/o shame.  The name comes from the fact that it grows easily almost everywhere.  Brazilians think it is a weed. It has the nice deep green leaves and pink flowers.

I don’t know what the red flower below is called.  There were a bunch of them growing on the median strip near my house.  I gathered a couple seed pods; only three came up.   I have no idea what the other one is.  That is just another volunteer. 

I like it better than the carpet-like lawn, especially because I am not sure what will come up.  It is a surprise.  One thing that is disappointing is that there seem to be not many bees and butterflies.  Generally speaking, the grasslands around here are less exuberant than our plains.  I read that this is because the Brazilian grasslands lacked large ungulates, such as bison. These big beasts graze the grass, fertilize with their manure and help spread seeds.  I can help spread the seeds, but I don’t think I want to do the other two things on my lawn and I don’t want to repeat my sheep experiment.  Below is Maria sem Vergonha.