Rural woman discovers value in weeds
By ROWENA PLETT
Reporter / photographer
When Mary Beth Bowers of rural Marion goes anywhere in her vehicle, she takes country roads.
Why? Because she is looking for colorful and unusual weeds in roadside ditches, fields, and pastures. She has discovered prairie weeds in Marion County grow in a wide variety of colors, textures, and fragrances and make attractive bouquets others are willing to pay for.
She again will have a booth at Art in the Park at Marion. Besides bouquets, she will sell wreaths and buffalo gourd ornaments. She plans to offer approximately 70 items.
Because her craft doesn't require much investment, Bowers can sell her creations at a reasonable price. In 2001, she said, she quickly sold all she had assembled.
She has named her enterprise Prairie Weeds.
Bowers' success can be attributed to many years of experience living in the country and her keen interest in things growing naturally around her.
The daughter of Charles and the late JoAnn Kjellin, she and her husband, Greg, live just across US-56/77 from her father.
Years ago, she began taking slide pictures of wildflowers. Soon she was presenting slide shows to interested groups.
She also enjoyed making dried arrangements for herself.
"I did it for fun," she said.
On one occasion, she was asked to make natural centerpiece arrangements for a wedding reception.
It wasn't until two years ago that Bowers decided to try to sell her creations.
The Bowers live at 2330 U.S.-56/77, about five miles northeast of Marion. They farm land three miles from the farmstead. Going back and forth from the field, Bowers explores the roadsides and pastures along the way. While driving the tractor, she constantly is on the lookout for attractive plants.
When she spies a desirable weed, she jots down the location in the little notebook she carries with her, so she can return at the right time to harvest it.
Most of the plants come from roadside ditches.
She once spotted a plant in a ditch near Peabody and checked on it for weeks, waiting for it to fully mature. When she decided the time was right to harvest it, she was disappointed to discover it had been mowed.
"I'm one of very few people who don't like to see ditches mowed," she said.
Bowers emphasized that whenever she spots a desirable weed on private property, she contacts the landowner for permission before entering his property to harvest the plant.
She said she finds many desirable weeds in hay meadows, where the plants are allowed to grow, as opposed to pastures where cattle eat the small plants at the beginning of the grazing season.
She and Greg have a mutual agreement that when haying time comes, he lets her know a day or two ahead of time, so she can get out there and gather the weeds for her collection.
Harvesting wild plants for dried arrangements is an art. Bowers said she has learned a lot through trial and error.
Some weeds have to be cut while still green while others are cut after they have matured and begun to dry.
Not all wild-growing plants are desirable for dried arrangements. Bowers said that weeds which contain a lot of moisture often disintegrate when dried.
"I'm still learning," she said.
She has collected more than 25 varieties. The second story of an old farm house near her home is filled with hundreds of five-gallon buckets of dried weeds.
Those plants which form the basis for her bouquets are white sage, yarrow, and goldenrod.
Others include yucca pods, sumac, dried coneflower, gay feather, leavenworth eyrngo, buttonbush, horse tail, and broomweed.
Bowers also uses many varieties of grasses in her arrangements. She uses a bit of spray paint to add a splash of color when necessary.
Almost every year, Bowers discovers a new plant. This year she found a button snakeroot which is two-feet tall and has round seed heads the size of quarters.
One year Bowers found a plant with attractive clusters of cream-colored berries. She cut a bunch and, because they were oily, laid them on a vinyl tablecloth in the back seat of the car.
When she returned home and looked through her six reference books to identify the plant, she discovered it was poison ivy. She was terrified but, to her amazement, she didn't experience a reaction.
"I dodged a bullet," she said.
At the present time, drying plants can be found everywhere around the Bowers' home, in containers or hung on lines strung on the porch or lines strung in interior rooms, and on coat racks. The dining room table is covered with bouquets.
"My family is anxious for Art in the Park to come and go so life can return to normal around here," Bowers said, smiling, "but the greatest kick I get out of this is that this is just natural stuff that farmers consider undesirable and worthless."
