March Gardening Tip

When buying bedding plants, choose those that aren't in bloom. If they already have bloomed, pinch off the blooms when you plant them. Your plant will get established faster, and you will have a bushier plant.
--Agnes Kozisek, Ventura Garden Club


Veronica Lorson Fowler with the Federated Garden Clubs of Iowa, Gardening in Iowa and Surrounding Areas

Aromatic aster - Art by Claudia McGehee

Aromatic aster, Aster oblongifolius

In the fall, after most plants have finished blooming, aromatic aster opens its flowers across the prairie. Each bushy plant has hundreds of bright purple flowers with yellow centers.

Claudia McGehee, A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet

Plant of the Week

Death camas
Zigadenus elegans Pursh
other common names: alkali grass, smooth camass, white camass
Zigadenus (also Zygadenus): probably from Greek zygos, meaning “a yoke,” and aden, meaning “a gland,” because the glands sometimes occur in pairs. (Also called Anticlea.)
Elegans: from Latin for “elegant,” perhaps in reference to the showy flower heads
Lily family: Liliaceae

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

March Gardening Tip

Save the oil drained from your car and mix it with sand in a box or pail. When you're through with a garden tool, such as a spade, plunge it into the oiled sand to clean and oil it in one operation.
--Wilma Lesan, Ames Garden Club

Veronica Lorson Fowler with the Federated Garden Clubs of Iowa, Gardening in Iowa and Surrounding Areas

This Week in Iowa Nature

March 21-22: Vernal Equinox

The Iowa Nature Calendar, by Jean Prior and James Sandrock

Plant of the Week

Spiderwort
Tradescantia ohiensis Raf.
other common names: blue jackets, cow slobbers, Job’s tears, Ohio spiderwort, widow tears
Tradescantia: in honor of John (the older) Tradescant, gardener to Charles I, King of England in the early 17th century
Ohiensis: meaning “of or from Ohio”
Spiderwort family: Commelinaceae

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

An Interview with Paul Garvin: Part 3

What other areas of geology particularly interest you?
I have a lot of interest in natural disasters, like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, hurricanes, and floods, and their impacts on human activity. Decision makers continue to make foolish, and very serious, mistakes about land use because they are ignorant of, or they ignore, simple principles of earth dynamics. I taught several courses at Cornell College on this subject. I am also interested in forensic geology (the study of geologic materials for the purpose of solving crimes).

You are currently doing archaeological research. Tell us more.
My research might best be called mineralogy in service of archaeology. I have a passion for archaeology, which stems from my boyhood days as an amateur arrowhead collector in Idaho. I have no formal training in the discipline, but my knowledge of mineralogy has helped me answer some important questions about how, for example, aboriginal Iowans made their pottery. I have been collaborating with the Office of the State Archaeologist in Iowa City on a study of pottery that was excavated at a site at the Dows Preserve (across from Palisades-Kepler State Park). The Woodland peoples admixed crushed rock (temper) with the clay, in order to control shrinkage during drying and firing, so as to prevent cracking. Through a microscopic study of pottery sherds, I have discovered that different potters preferentially selected (and deselected) specific rock types for inclusion in their pottery. This knowledge has enabled to us determine whether the pottery was made locally or imported to the use area. (There is more to this, but I’ll stop here.)

Paul Garvin, Iowa’s Minerals: Their Occurrence, Origins, Industries, and Lore