Some thoughts on new lupines

I went to the preserve today to look at the seedling

lupines and see if more had appeared. There appeared to several, including what looked

like seedlings in the planted area.

The assumption is that the lupines in the path

are from an old seed bank because of their distance from the planted patch. They're perhaps 100 feet away.

I've been told the lupines broadcast their seeds, but I don't recall reading how far.

What's interesting is that if these seedlings are the result of an old seed bank, that it is occurring so close to anintentional planting site.

It's going to be interesting to see if any more lupines pop up.
The goal, of course, is to have a self-sustaining population, which will I suppose take years.

I was thinking about that as I was driving along I-4 this morning east of U.S. 27 on the sandhills near County 54 and noticing the expanse of sky blue lupine, the scrub lupine's common relative.

The blue lupine appeared to be blooming already.Scrub lupine's still a few weeks off.

I'll continue to help to monitor. It could be an interesting year.

Volunteer lupines increase

This week I got a note from Juliet Rynear from Bok, who makes regular checks of the lupine plantings.
She found some volunteer seedlings in the east-west path west of the first plantings.
I went out today to take a look and found two more farther west and marked them.
I wonder if we need to get some volunteers together and do a broader search.

Meeting a neighbor

Sometimes it takes awhile to make contact with the neighbors.
Today I met a man named Mike, who said he had been watching me out there for years and wondered what was happening.
I explained a little bit of what going on.
We also talked about the recent tire dumping. He said he knew who did it and was glad I threw the tires back over the fence.
He also said he knew which kids were responsible for vandalizing the lupine patch in the early days.
I picked up a bucketload of trash and a couple of larger items.
I also checked the lupines for recent sprouts, but didn't notice any. It may take awhile to build up the seed

Waiting for new lupines

The unknown timing of the next step of the lupine recovery effort occupies my thoughts.
Last spring's bloom resulted in seeds.but the question is whether any will germinate and produce new plants this year.
I've been looking, but so far haven't seen anything that looks like sprouting lupines.
The unexpected January rains have improved the prospects, perhaps.
Other than that, the lupine appear healthy, but I'd love to see a patch of scrub lupine that looks like the sky blue lupine along I-4 near the Polk-Osceola line, which was growing very lushly as I drove by Sunday.

Meanwhile, the one section of fence continues to be vandalized. I'll get to it this weekend.