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It’s gotta be a grassroots movement

Group calls upon Manitobans to vote for provincial symbol

By: Carol Sanders

Posted: 05/4/2009 7:09 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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Kyle Lucyk of Living Prairie Museum with Big Bluestem Grass. (WAYNE GLOWACKI/ WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

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Little bluestem

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Sideoats Grama

MANITOBANS — prepare to pick your grass.
Albertans adopted Needle and Thread. Saskatchewan laid claim to Rough Fescue.
Now, a group of Winnipeggers passionate about the prairie is trying to get Manitobans to identify our provincial grass.
The volunteers have set up a web poll with four choices of grass that are disappearing from the Prairies.
"It’s significant to everyone," said Pick Our Grass committee member Julie Pelc.
The botanist said 99.5 per cent of natural prairie grasslands have been destroyed by development. Livestock, some endangered species, birds and other creatures rely on the indigenous grasses for food and habitat, the committee said.
"The idea is to get people connected to the prairie landscape and have some fun while they’re doing it," said the committee’s Marilena Kowalchuk.
"The underlying kind of intent is to raise awareness of prairie conservation and the wonderful diversity of prairie habitats because they do continue to decline because of poor management or get plowed under for crops."
The committee has put forward four candidates that it says are the most "charismatic, identifiable and representative species." They include Big Bluestem, Sideoats Grama, Blue Grama and Little Bluestem.
Pelc’s favourite — and the grass leading in votes so far — is Big Bluestem.
"To me, it’s the prairie I see."
The tall grass grows in and around the fertile Red River Valley and loves the sun, she said.
And tall is no exaggeration. Big Bluestem can grow as tall as Shirley Froehlich, said Froehlich, who owns Prairie Originals.
Her company grows and sells more than a dozen indigenous grasses as well as plants and wildflowers. Gardeners value them because they’re so hardy, beautiful and perennial, said Froehlich, whose company sells clumps or plugs of the grasses as well as seeds.
All four of the grass candidates can be found at the Living Prairie Museum on Ness Avenue, education co-ordinator Kyle Lucyk said.
To learn more about the grasses and cast a ballot, go to www.manitobagrass.ca Voting closes Dec. 15.
The winning grass will be declared at the Prairie Conservation and Endangered Species conference in Winnipeg in February.
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

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