School Tour of the CSR Native Plant Farm in ID

Lupinus sericeus, Silky Lupine in the CSR greenhouse
Killdeer, showing the students how they protect their eggs when threatened.
Aquilegia desertorum, desert columbine
Aquilegia scopulorum, Utah columbine
Thanks to CSR’s Rich Drick and Michael Callen, our school tour guides.

Conservation Seeding and Restoration, Inc. hosted another elementary school tour at our southern Idaho farm facility. An important element, and one we thoroughly enjoy, is to help educate area youth in the benefits of native flora and fauna. We hope their visit to the CSR native plant farm will inspire them to get outside and explore their environment.

2013 INPS Idaho Native Plant Photo Contest

“Shoot for your chance to showcase our amazing Idaho flora!

The Idaho Native Plant Society is having a photo contest! The contest is open to all members of INPS across the state. This is an excellent opportunity for plant lovers to share their most remarkable photos and earn a chance to win a prize. Photos may be used for the INPS image library on the website, education and outreach documents, Sage Notes, and future calendars.

Photos must be of plants NATIVE to Idaho. This can include close-up shots of species or landscape shots of multiple plants in their native habitats. The contest rules and the entry form can be opened by clicking on the links below. The contest start and end dates will be March 31, 2013 and August 30, 2013″

Photo Contest Rules

Entry Form

7th Intermountain Native Plant Summit – March 26-27th

CSR will be attending the 7th Intermountain Native Plant Summit on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 26-27, 2013, at Boise State University. Sponsored by the BSU Department of Biological Sciences and the USDA-Agricultural Research Service. The Summit is open to the public, free of charge. We welcome you to join us!

2013 Boise Flower and Garden Show

CSR, Inc will be at the 17th annual Boise Flower & Garden Show, March 22-24, 2013 at the Boise Centre, 10-9 on Fri, 10-8 Sat, 11-5 on Sunday.

Stop by our booth and let us answer all your native plant questions!

Lewisia Rediviva in the CSR Greenhouse

Bitter Root, Lewisi rediviva, growing in the Southern Idaho CSR Greenhouse. Last spring, under permit, CSR made a small collection of bitter root plants from a windswept ridge on Cotterel Mountain near Albion, ID. The goal was to learn propagation techniques, enabling CSR to offer these beautiful native plants to you.

CSR’s new baby Bitter Root plants are coming along nicely!

Flowering in the Greenhouse: Dodecatheon pulchellum, Darkthroat Shootingstar

Darkthroat shootingstar (Dodecatheon pulchellum) growing in the CSR Southern Idaho greenhouse. This beautiful native plant will be available for purchase at the 2013 Boise Flower & Garden Show next month.

Silky Lupine in the Southern ID Greenhouse

Lupinus sericeus starting to put down roots in the Southern ID Greenhouse!

The flowers of this lupine are blue or mostly blue, in dense, terminal racemes. Its stems are diffusely branched, vary in height from 1-2 ft., and are clumped together on a coarse, branching root crown. Leaves are palmately compound, and each narrow leaflet is covered with silky hairs. (Lady Bird Johnson)

Native Plant Focus: Calochortus nuttallii, Sego Lily

Sego Lily, Calochortus nuttallii, grows 10-20 in. high, from an onion-like bulb. This perennial’s erect, slender stem is usually unbranched and bears 2-4 linear leaves, 7-10 in. long. One to three very showy, white to lavender-blue, tulip-like flowers are borne atop the stem in an umbel-like cluster. The flowers have three large petals with yellow bases and three narrower sepals. Occasionally petals are magenta or tinged with lilac.

The Ute Indians called the Sego Lily “sago” and taught Mormon settlers to eat the bulbs in times of scarcity. (Lady Bird Johnson)

Sego Lily is Utah’s state flower:
“By an act of the Utah State Legislature, approved on March 18, 1911, the sego lily was declared to be the State floral emblem (Utah Code). Kate C. Snow, President of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, in a letter dated April 17, 1930, says that “between 1840 and 1851″ food became very scarce in Utah due to a crop-devouring plague of crickets, and that “the families were put on rations, and during this time they learned to dig for and to eat the soft, bulbous root of the sego lily. The memory of this use, quite as much as the natural beauty of the flower, caused it to be selected in after years by the Legislature as the floral emblem of the State.”

Native Plant Roots

Native plants typically have deep and extensive root systems which help them survive dry conditions and which effectively hold soil, controlling soil erosion and moderate floods.

The root systems are a major part of the biomass provided by vegetation. Through photosynthesis these plants use carbon dioxide to create complex hydrocarbons, thereby enriching the soil and reducing the “greenhouse effect” of carbon dioxide.

In a residential lawn scenario, cool season turf grasses such as Kentucky Bluegrass, have very shallow root systems (far left plant in diagram) and are much less effective in controlling erosion and withstanding severe drought. This non-native grass requires much more water than a native variety.

Diagram shared from the Conservation Research Institute

Sedum debile, Orpine Stonecrop

Sedum debile, photographed at Alpine Lake in the Sawtooth Forest, Idaho.

“Sedum Debile, or more commonly know as Orpine Stonecrop, is a forb/herb (a forb/herb is a non-woody plant that is not a grass) of the genus Sedum. Its duration is perennial which means it will grow year after year. Sedum Debile or Orpine Stonecrop‘s floral region is North America US Lower 48, specifically in the states of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.” (SageBud)