The Future is Insight


Tuesday, September 19, 2006

The Prairie Restoration



On the biodiversity front the biggest initiative was our 12'x60' prairie restoration along the DOT fence, My goal was to swap the all but monoculture grass mix the DOT used (it had spread thru the fence) for a diverse prairie culture that would be tweaked to provide excess nitrogen for the 25 Thuja tree wind/sight break to shield us from both the north winds and I-90. With some educated ecological design I am attempting to foster a succession planting from monoculture to prairie to 'forest' in under 10 years. What was that about hubris again?

So enough background and time for the progress report. The Thuja were about 18" tall when I put then put them in and have put on 2" or so the first summer. Hopefully they will double in height next year (they should be able to put on 3-5'/yr once established!) now that their roots are developed. Initial prognosis of the prairie planting was not good. Even though I had cut the sod off to a depth of 4-6" the rhizomes from the nasty DOT grass were prevalent enough that within the first month they had sprouted several shoots per sq foot and were threatening to reclaim the project before the slow growing perennials could get established. I compounded this by watering the prairie seeds heavily the first few weeks-the prairie seeds didn't need the water, but the rhizome bits loved it. First learning! So I went in and hacked down the prairie growth to about 4" with a sickle to even the odds. Then in late July the darn DOT grass sent up thousands of seed stalks-not good! By now the prairie plants had sprouted well and were about 6-8" tall and I couldn't just go cutting again, so I basically hand weeded the stalks. Payback? We have hundreds of blooms, and its only the first year! The black eyed susans and cup plants are short, but blooming and it looks like some of the clovers and perhaps the quinine will bloom as well. Given the thickness of the wildflowers, and the amount of native grasses that I see sprouted but only 4" tall I am confident that next summer they will be able to complete and win against the invasive DOT rhizomes.

Given the vigor of the Big Blue Stem grass, Cupplant, and Indigo I have seen in the other smaller prairie plantings my new biggest concern is that next summer when the prairie gets into its own it will be 2-3' taller than the 36" tall Thuja...ox-eye sunflower, cupplant and bluestem can easily hit 6' once established. The prairie was designed to be a nursery crop, shielding the tree seedlings until they can thrive, but the prairie is about a year ahead of where I thought it would be on growth, threatening to shade out the trees next year. What a great problem to have! Most likely I will either mulch larger circles around the mini trees, or just cut down swaths around the trees that I am worried about to let in some light.


Here's to hubris!


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At 10:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The first year of my prairie didn't see a return of the buffalo to central WI." Well, there's always next year. Heh.

So cool, Beo! Huzzah for hubris, if this is the result.

At 5:13 PM, Blogger Mia said...

Cute and cuddly would be nice, but regardless, the prairie is really neat to have back there. It naturalizes that portion of the backyard without encroaching on the recreational space or the general feel of the whole backyard area.

At 6:37 PM, Anonymous e4 said...

I had a similar problem with plants threatening to take over the trees I planted (though mine wasn't prairie so much as weeds). I did finally put down some newspaper and mulch around them. We'll see how that goes. I'm thinking of buying a batch of trees next spring from the Ohio DNR. They sell tiny little 6-12 inch saplings of all kinds of trees for like $0.50 apiece. I think you have to buy them in batches of 25 though. Instant baby woodlot!

Anyway, you two are my heroes. You're doing so many awesome things...


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