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Private Prairie Message



I received this message privately, so I have removed the name of who sent it
(altho it probably does not matter).  It is a wonderful note , with lots of info
for the 'amateur' restorationist (like me) , real life experiences we all can
enjoy and hopes for the future.....
Alan,
I do hope that whatever you do you'll keep good records! I had hoped to
do my last prairie planting several ways, but since I was in a state of
panic with winter bearing down on me, I ended up being happy to get it
planted.

Things that I believe, but that aren't necessarily so.
    1. Grasses are generally more aggressive than forbs and it is easier
to seed in grasses at a later date than forbs.
    2. Burning favors grasses sometimes at the expense of forbs. Mowing
can be substituted many years, but not all.
    3. Diversity of species is the key. A species certainly can't grow
if it wasn't seeded in.
    4. Every year will be different as the prairie takes on a life of
its own. Succession and dominance and changing weather patterns.
    5. There are as many ways to plant a prairie as there are people
planting it. It is the native stuff of the midwest and given half a
chance it will grow.
    6. But we can certainly do much to help it along!

I'm sorry that I didn't save the stuff I wrote to you in the past so
that I wouldn't repeat myself now. But here goes...
I planted mine on an oat stubble field that had been round-up'ed once.
(had I had time I might have round up'ed it again the next year...twice!
I'm fighting Canadian thistle pretty bad and it must have been there
before all of this.) I broadcast the seed over the top of the ground
(against everything I believed in, I always "plant" stuff, put it in the
ground!) as the snow was flying the second week of November. I did
nothing else to it altho I wanted to cultipack it. But I think the quick
snow cover packed it well for the winter.

I put in about 10 species of grass, 20 species of sedges and the rest
forbs. The first year (Nov '96) we seeded in 141 species total. We added
more seed the second year including 30 new species. We added more seed
the third year including 110 new species. So far I've id'd 95 species
growing, but not necessarily flowering. The delightful ones (for me) are
cardinal flower, phlox, wood betony and swamp betony, bottle gentian,
slender false foxglove (which I had never seen before, a friend gathered
the seeds), white and purple prairie clovers, stiff gentian, pale purple
coneflower and prairie blazing star. Which is not to say I have a lot of
any of the above, because I don't. I've got a lot of other stuff like
golden alexanders, blue vervain, hoary vervain, stiff goldenrod, grey
headed goldenrod, and stuff I can't id at all but I know it's prairie
because it's not weeds.

the first year we mowed 8 times. last year we mowed everything once and
the perimeter a second time, because that's where the sweet clover and
wild parsnips were mostly. I hand weeded the few Queen Anne's lace and
most all the sweet clover and the wild pasnips and most of the bull
thistles. But I just didn't have time to do it all so this year I have
dock, lots of dock, and more C. thistle.

I could spend months helping this prairie along. But I think time is
what it needs most of all.

I do tend to worry, and want to be involved and controlling things (yeah
right) and there hasn't been much grass show up yet, in my estimation.
but there wasn't enough debris to burn this spring which would have
spurred the grasses on. (besides I'm afraid of fire, on a large scale,
and need to find someone to burn it for me, it's a little too big of
project a half a day from here so I can't very well ask friends either)

I also think I'm coming to the end of my identification ability. I'll
have to wait for things to flower and I still won't know the sedges.

Many of the pioneer plants are annuals, or biennials, or what people
call weeds. If you check in any weed book you'll see quite a number of
prairie plants listed because they have done well in competition to
man's crops.

I too had a lot (too much) daisy fleabane last year on the bottom wet
field. I wanted to mow but one friend said then I'd lost all the seed
from the good plants that were going to flower.

I'll drive up there one weekend and be delighted by what I see and then
in a couple of weeks I'll drive up there and be depressed as all get
out.

My expectations! nature has her own way. And besides, if I had done it
just like this before, say over the past 20 years, I'd know what to
expect...maybe.

Do you have these books?
Where the Sky Began, Land of the Tallgrass Prairie by John Madson

The Forgotten Pollinators by Stephen L. Buchmann and Gary Paul Nabhan

Noah


Æs Garden, Restoring the Ecology of Your Own Backyard by Sara Stein

Planting Noah



Æs Garden, Further Adventures in Backyard Ecology by Sara
Stein

Prairies, Forests & Wetlands, The Restoration of Natural landscape
Communities in Iowa by Janette R. Thompson

Wetland Plants and Plant Communities of Minnesota and Wisconsin, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers

Restoring the Tallgrass Prairie, An Illustrated manual for Iowa and the
Upper Midwest
By Shirley Shirley

In your forb field did you keep it mowed the first year or two? And
remnants are impressive all thru the year because of the forbs but as
the year progresses the grasses will make themselves apparent. They
dominate by years end. Every year is different and every remnant is
different.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Ps. Your final observation is the same one I came to. I've been keeping
track of all the prairie species growing but also, and in some respects
more important, I've been keeping track to the insects, butterflies,
snakes, frogs, toads, birds, mammals, etc. For what i am aiming for is
recreating an ecosystem. I can plant the plants but after that, it's up
to nature. My only regret is that I don't have another 100-500 years to
watch it evolve.

Fauna in Prairie
mole
pocket gophers
barred owls (heard)
frogs
toads
brown snake
turkeys
ruffed grouse
little brown job (birds/nesting in bull thistle)
bluebirds
great blue heron
eagles (overhead)
ants (giant ant hills)
swallowtail
checkerspot
goldfinches
grasshoppers
song sparrow
black and yellow argiope
mourning dove
monarchs
marsh hawk (overhead)
burnit moths
bumblebee
honeybee
ambush bugs
badger












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