Hi, Prairie!

So, I’m building an ecosystem.

I needed a mental health project, something where I could see tangible results for my efforts and feel I was actually accomplishing some good, and a bonus would be something that was physically tied to my locality. I decided to expand my fight against our local invasive species into a prairie restoration.

Now, to be clear, my particular neighborhood was never high prairie, not the kind you’re thinking of with bison and grizzlies. (Yes, grizzlies were once plains animals, before they were pushed out!) Indiana did have bison, as seen on our state seal, but my county was historically closed canopy forest, often over bogs and fens, and our state grasslands were a different kind of prairie than what people usually picture.

The forests have been fully clear-cut, no original woodlands remaining, and the bogs and fens mostly filled in or drained. I can’t restore an old growth forest in my lifetime — but I can recreate another environment we also had in central Indiana, and bringing back restored native grasses and forbs (wildflowers) is practical and useful, even without a bison to browse it. My restoration is really more of a recreation, but it will benefit both pollinators and people.

I’ve been fighting invasive species for a while, but I made a new concentrated effort on the chosen field, specifically targeting amur honeysuckle (shrub), Japanese honeysuckle (vine), wintercreeper (vine), autumn olive (tree), Bradford/Callery pear (tree), and multiflora rose. I also decided to reduce the goldenrod population; goldenrod is a native, but it was out of balance with the rest of the struggling area, taking advantage of the suppressed natives to clone itself densely across the field.

Most of these invasive species were brought in on purpose, decades ago, and now they’re doing a lot of real harm, from killing our songbirds to increasing our tick populations. While I prefer to take a natural approach to management, the species I’m tackling are known for popping back in multiples from the root system, so mowing or cutting alone can actually make an infestation worse. Cut and stump-treat is my favorite method to treat effectively with minimal chemical use — maybe an eighth of a teaspoon for an entire tree or shrub, and no risk of overspray or collateral damage. The smothering vines were treated with foliar spray, since there wasn’t much to save around them.

After some targeted herbicides, we were ready to clear without fear of thicker rebound. I’ve been doing a lot of clearing manually, with loppers and chainsaw, but this was more than I wanted to handle, and I called in professional help.

After cutting and mulching the field, I was left with a half dozen slash piles, which I then burned to clear and to return nutrients to the soil.

For those worried about the burning: It’s okay! I’m in Indiana, in what used to be swamp. It’s not impossible to go wrong with fire here, but it’s not nearly as easy as elsewhere, especially when much of the ground has been cleared of fuel. I chose a burn day less than a week after two inches of snow and more rain, so the ground was damp, and when rain was forecast for that night, and with a low windspeed that gusted up to 3 and 4 mph at top. Fire, both natural and man-made, was historically common and beneficial for many ecosystems, including grasslands. It was perfect burn conditions, and I was legal. (Please follow your own local laws and best practices, of course! Smokey the Bear has some very good points.)

One thing to be careful of is lingering fire, in this case deep within debris piles after the main fire had gone out. I expected this, but I was particularly impressed with the persistence of one fire in particular.

This pile of mulch and detritus continued smoldering after the main fire had died, as I expected. This photo was taken the next evening — after 20 hours of rain ranging from drizzle to hard downpour. I went out to check on the smolders and found it opened by the weather to this smiley face of interior fire steaming into the cold evening. (This is how ground fires can pop up after days or weeks in susceptible areas.) Fortunately, I’d planned for the lingering smolder, and you can see the ground around has little fuel. I raked it open, and a day later it was finally extinguished.

Next up is seeding, along with watching some natives return from the seed bank now that they have a chance. Fall/winter seeding is best for this kind of project, as many of these need the winter’s effects to prompt germination in the spring. I have a custom seed mix in hand and am waiting for more comfortable weather; more to come!