Prairie Garden 2012

During late winter, as part of my management scheme for the prairie garden, I remove all of the dead growth from the previous year.  Last year, fire was my tool of choice and I burned the garden in early March.  The evening sunlight shining through the golden grass stalks gives the appearance of flame, as though the grass was begging for another burn.  This year, however, I’m going to mow the prairie garden as a way of removing that dead growth. 

At this angle, the appearance of the grass is more typical of what I see every day.  Since discovering larvae of the Unexpected Tiger Moth, an endangered species in Ohio, living on one of the Butterflyweed plants, I’ve decided not to use fire in this particular area.  The Unexpected Tiger Moth pupae overwinter just below the leaf litter near the base of their host plant.  Because fire removes the leaf litter and would most likely destroy the pupae, I feel that burning the prairie garden is no longer appropriate.

I’ve used blue flags to mark locations of a couple of cages that protect sensitive plants in the prairie garden.  The flags are placed so they are well below the cutting blades of the mower and anchored well enough that they shouldn’t pull free as the blades pass over.  The flags will allow me to easily reset the wire cages.

The Nodding Wild Onions have already begun their growth for the season.  While they are not looking exceptionally vigorous at this time, they are alive and will hopefully go on to produce an abundance of seed.  I’m still struggling to establish a stable population of Nodding Wild Onions in the garden.  Since something seems to knock them back each year, they are still receiving special treatment.  The blue marker will also allow me to avoid trampling or otherwise damaging the onions during the mowing process.  It bothers me that I have so much trouble growing what some people in the area consider to be a troublesome yard weed.

There are several other prairie plants that have begun their growth for the 2012 season.  These Round-podded St. Johnsworts have already put on a good bit of growth.

I accomplished the mowing with the help of the DR.  The DR is an easier tool than JR to use for small scale work.  I don’t typically cut thick woody vegetation with this mower, so the blade stays nice and sharp.  This allows me to get a clean cut of the grass.  It also has smaller tires and less potential for causing damage to growing plants.

There was a lot of material left on the ground after the mowing was completed.  The plants would go ahead and grow through this material, but since one of my primary objectives in maintaining the prairie garden is to observe the early growth of the plants, I removed the cut material to give me an unobstructed view of the ground.  A quick brushing with the leaf rake was all it took to adequately remove the material.

Following the raking, I replaced my cages and markers.  The ground is now clear enough to easily see what’s growing.  I’ll have no trouble monitoring the growth progress on into summer.

Adequate small material was left behind to afford some soil protection.  Some nutrients are lost with the removal of the top growth, but this area does not suffer from low fertility, so that won’t be an issue for plant growth.

Plenty of plants are poised and ready to shoot up as soon as conditions allow.  The Western Sunflowers always have some green leaves showing.  They’re one of those plants that seem to take advantage of the winter sunlight to produce some extra energy.

Prairie Garden Burn Update

After withstanding several rains since being burned three weeks ago, the prairie garden is looking more barren and less charred. The rains have caused some erosion, but it’s nothing that will inhibit the desired plants from thriving.

I chose this location for the prairie garden because the soil was so poor and rocky that lawn grass wouldn’t survive. Those were the exact conditions I needed for the barren and prairie plants I hoped to grow. Conditions were great for the first couple of years, but the mass of prairie plants improved the soil so much by adding organic matter and providing erosion protection that weeds were able to become established. Non-native grasses are now continually trying to take over.

Bluegrass is usually only noticeable in the early spring. Within a month, the other plants will overtop and hide the Bluegrass from sight. The grass will still be in there competing with the other plants and if given the chance, will thicken into a tight sod. Even as scattered individual plants, the Bluegrass can provide detrimental competition to the native species.

Tall Fescue also takes advantage of the improved soil conditions. Fescue is more aggressive than the Bluegrass and is particularly hard on the native forbs. There are very few wildflowers that can maintain themselves in a sod of fescue.

Fortunately, these non-native grasses begin growth very early in the spring. After an early burn, they are the first plants to show new growth. At this stage, heavy infestations of grass can be safely sprayed with glyphosate herbicide with minimal risk to non-target species. Plants that have not yet begun to grow will not be harmed by the herbicide.

Before spraying, you do have to be sure there’s nothing growing that you don’t want killed. Even though most native plants have not begun to emerge, there are a few, like this Western Sunflower, that are up and going. The seedlings are a non-native called Black Medic. They respond much as the non-native grasses and are really thick following an early burn. The trick is to vary your management techniques so you don’t favor the same weed species year after year.

A Quick Burn

The prairie garden located in the middle of my front lawn serves many functions. One function that is of great importance to me, but is seldom noticeable to visitors, is that of being a place for assessing various management techniques. That gravel strip in the background is the driveway running from the house to the township road, so the prairie garden is in a position to be viewed by me almost every day. I can apply some type of management to this area and then closely monitor the results on a daily basis. Techniques that show positive results can then be tried on a larger scale out in the fields.

Fire is a commonly recognized tool for maintenance of native prairie areas and I burn this small patch every two or three years. I pushed over the tall grass stalks so I could get a more complete burn and keep the flame height from reaching for the clouds.

It takes less than a minute for the fire to cross the roughly 600 square feet of the garden. The ground was cold and damp and the lingering smoke smelled of musty towels. I’ve never had a fire smell as badly as this. Afterwards, I smelled as if I had been sleeping in the bottom of someone’s burn barrel.

I used a wet towel to protect an area that will serve as a control. It’s easier to judge results when you have an untreated area to use as a comparison.

Those light yellow spots in the center of the flames identify the location of the wet towel.

The towel was only under flame for about 10 seconds. This is another one of those tests to see if my wife is looking at this blog. Ten minutes before this shot was taken, that towel was hanging on the rack beside the bathroom sink.

It looks like the towel performed as expected. Everything that was green is still green and fresh. Much of that greenery is annual weeds that were hopefully destroyed in the burned section.

I also protected my caged Nodding Wild Onions. They would have recovered from the burn, but they’ve had so many problems getting established that I didn’t want to stress them any further.

The onions appear unscathed. Hopefully they’ll produce some viable seed this year.

It was cold when I burned and there weren’t many ants outside. As I watched the flames rush past the mound, I wondered how quickly the ants could respond to the approaching danger and seek shelter. I’ll revisit the prairie garden periodically over the next few months and give my opinion on the good and bad aspects of burning as a management tool in this area.