It took J. David Bamberger over 40 years of toil and trial to achieve his vision of what Selah could be. He struggled with invasive plants, an abused and neglected landscape and mistaken conventional wisdom. He persisted. Today he generously shares the lessons he learned along the way. The reality is: it doesn’t take 40 years to achieve these results if one has the desire, the resources and the commitment to restore natural space to its original health and abundance.
We highly recommend that you start with learning your soils before embarking on reseeding native grasses in order to help ensure germination success. Researched and printed back in the 1960′s and 1970′s, the then-Soil Conservation Service crawled all over Texas and mapped out soils and made lists of what “should” grow there and what would be the best land use for those soils. Now out of print, the hard copies of the books are hard to come by, but visit your local Natural Resource Conservation District and ask, or you can download the digital version.
Texas Online Soil Survey Manuscripts
If you’re located anywhere in Central Texas, you probably can’t go wrong with starting with Little Bluestem and Side Oats Gramma, but do ask the experts. Early grass reseedings at Selah was provided by our friends at Douglass King Seed company in San Antonio.
Native American Seed Company also has an impressive staff of experts and you can order your seeds through them by soil or eco-region type.
There are different opinions on when is the best time of year to reseed for grasses. Most of Central Texas grasses seed, naturally, in the autumn season with the seeds requiring that cold winter to be ready for spring-time germination. Thus, some folks recommend seeding in the fall, like you might with bluebonnet seeds for greatest success. However, most seed providers have the seeds prepared that they sell to you, having already put their seeds through the chilling process and are ready for planting in the spring.
Lastly, if you’re trying to reclaim burn site where you may have burned brush piles, check out research done at the CL Browning Ranch in Johnson City with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. They have a list and recommendations of how best to repair those areas.
Hill Country Tree and Shrub Planting List
