All the Dirt on Gardening

Even though spring officially begins in March, wildflowers can appear before that. Many of the early ones appear with the first warms days, hugging the ground and creating a field of color that lasts only a few short days. Others wait until the sun warms the soil completely. For 30-years Patricia Folley has been wandering Oklahoma back roads, observing, recording and collecting wildflowers. Her new book, “The Guide to Oklahoma Wildflowers” is the first of its kind, with detailed descriptions and photographs she took. The plants collected on her travels reside in the Oklahoma Herbarium collection and are listed in the “Flora of Oklahoma” project. Oklahoma is unique among the 50-states. It has Rocky Mountain foothills, hardwood forests, rivers and streams, low mountains, sand dunes, cypress swamps, swaths of rangeland, pastureland, and more than ten ecoregions. There are tallgrass, mixed-grass, and shortgrass prairies in the state, and elevations ranging from 300-to-5,000 feet. That...