Western Corn Belt Plains

The Western Corn Belt Plains cover Iowa and stretch into southern Minnesota, eastern Nebraska, and northern Missouri, taking in Des Moines, Omaha, Lincoln, and Cedar Rapids. Under the row crops is some of the deepest, richest soil on earth, built by tallgrass prairie over thousands of years, and the weather runs to cold windy winters and hot humid summers. Natives like blue giant-hyssop, prairie milkweed, and blue wild indigo are what made that soil, and they handle the open exposure of a yard with no mature trees.

Conditions: Deep black prairie loam, 28–38 inches of rain falling mostly in the growing season, cold windy winters, hot humid summers.

Cities and areas: Des Moines, Omaha, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City, Lincoln, Rochester.