interesting...

Interesting observation....

On my property, the house sits about 12' above (literally) the garden, so you exit the back door onto the patio, then step down stairs (or stroll down a ramp) through three tiers of plantings before reaching the lawn at the bottom.

We killed the lawn off last summer to replace it with a lower patio and a meadow.  Of course, we've not actually planted  the meadow yet so the ground there is dirt with whatever pops up.  And what has popped up amazes me.  

There are the to-be-expected dandelions, weedy spurge, and other common weeds, but there are also buddleias, lots of poppies - California, horned, breadseed, etc, seedlings of a beautiful but uncommon polygala called Polygala apopetela (tall like a broom with purple flowers at the branch tips), and Verbascum!  I haven't grown Verbascum anywhere near that spot in about 5 years but there must have been a seed bank because they are sprouting everywhere. 

The most intersting part to me is thinking about why those seedlings (other than the weeds) never appeared when there was grass present.  Were they there and I missed them?  Did they get mowed down to the point that they didn't survive?  Or did the seeds filter down through the grass and wait until the more competitive grass was no longer there so they could germinate?

 Hmmmm.....
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