Anatomy of the Buckhorn Tavern Tree
Now that Jake is exploring the vast prairies of the west, I am left to tend to the interlobate prairies in Michigan. Winter is coming and it is a good time to bond with the forests that co-inhabit the oak openings of our area. Todays lesson is gathered from the harvesting of a large old red oak tree that blew over last spring.
The first step is to honor the tree for its contribution to the land. It has produced countless food for many small animals for decades as well as its role in cleansing the air and building the soil of the forest. The fallen tree has uprooted a large stump which creates an opening in the earth for important fungi and bacteria to grow. This tree will be harvested for fuel in my wood burning stove that heats my home. It seems rediculous that such a fine piece of wood which has served wood's highest, best purpose (being a living tree) for a century and a half would be used for one of the lowest purposes (burning for heat). This however is the world we live in and we honor the tree for its contribution.
Next, the first cuts into the trunk with the chain saw free up several twenty inch long logs which will be split later into firewood. I stack the wood outdoors to air dry until next spring when it will be split and then stored indoors to dry. The tree has a 23 inch dbh and about 35 feet of straight, clear oak wood, before branching out into a beautiful broad crown. Anyone who has ever cut a red oak can attest to the intoxicating aroma of the fresh cut oak wood. It is no surprise that distillers used this delicious wood for construction of their burbon casks and its rich aroma permeates fine burbon. I stop to rest and sit down in the forest next to copious piles of rich red oak sawdust that my saw has piled up from doing its work. Inhale and savor the aroma.
As I stack the round logs, I notice that this tree makes a great example of why old growth wood was so desireable for constructing things and why the young trees that we use today as a "renewable resource" are not the same as old growth wood which is hard to find. My new saw is sharp and leaves a nice clean cut that reveals the rings of the tree clearly. The center of the tree has thick rings of young growth for the first 30 to 50 years of age. The thickness of the rings gets progressively thinner as the tree ages. This aging effect is what gives the old growth wood its superior properties of strength and beauty from its dense tight grain.

 As the tree reaches an age of about 100 years the growth is very slow and is producing the finest wood. This tree has 146 rings measured at the first cut about two feet above the earth. It was just sprouting about the time that John Rhodes was opening his famous Buckhorn Tavern on the Shiawassee Trail near here.

At the center of the tree the rings are measured at about 9 years per inch of radius. At the outer edge the rings measure 24 years per inch of radial growth.

This section is from further up the trunk has 136 rings. It is incredible how tight the outer rings are and I have to put on my glasses to see well enought to count the rings. That is only about 0.040 inch of growth per year (less than the gap on a spark plug).

I stand in awe at this fine tree and wish that there was some way that I could tap into the changes to the landscape that it has seen. I would never cut a live tree so the opportunity to disect such a fine example is truly appreciated. This is an important benchmark since this tree is far from the largest in my forest. Always honor your ancestors.

Prairies and Savannas of Colorado - Part 1

Shortgrass prairie of eastern Colorado

Colorado is an interesting place to say the least.  There is a mystery about the native vegetation of the high plains and the front range, where the prairies of the central United States meet the dynamic and erratic landscape of the rocky mountains.  Living in Denver now, I am eager to learn more about this dry landscape and how it might of looked prior to the great changes that occured when it was settled by Europeans.

Denver lies within an area known as the flat to rolling high plains where the native shortgrass vegetation was blue grama grass, buffalo grass, assorted wildflowers and probably treeless.  This area predominated the northeastern and eastern side of the state and ran into western Nebraska and Kansas.  As you move closer to the foothills, you reach a narrow ecoregion known as the 'front range fans' where sedimentary deposits have eroded down out of the foothills trapping more moisture and allowing more tallgrass and mixed-grass species to grow.  Annual precipitation is higher here as well due to a proximity to the weather-making mountains.  This is where it gets interesting.  Because this narrow area of landscape is slightly wetter than the eastern high plains, isolated areas of tallgrass prairie with big bluestem, indiangrass and switchgrass can be found.  This type of prairie is common 500 miles to the east, but in Colorado it can be found here along the front range and in isolated basins within the rockies where precipitation is higher than average.

Ponderosa pine forests - south of Denver

As you move south out of Denver towards Colorado Springs, there is a rise in elevation and the landscape is more dissected and picturesque. This area, known as the 'southwestern tablelands' ecoregion, consists of mixed-grass prairies and ponderosa pine woodlands.  The area receives more rainfall annually and is a bit cooler due to the elevated hills and scattered mesas.  It reminds me a lot more of the dry areas of northern Michigan like Mio and Grayling (minus the mesas), where it is gently rolling and full of pine trees.  As opposed to northern Michigan, where red pine, jack pine and white pine are dominant among a variety of deciduous trees, the pine forests in this region are almost all ponderosa pine.  There are areas where gamble oak is common along with native shrubs, but ponderosa pine is almost always the dominant tree species.  An area called the "black forest" due to an abundance of ponderosa pine woodlands, is just north of Colorado Springs and is my next area of exploration.

Cottonwood Savanna

When Emily, John and Sophia came to town, we had a chance to venture into the high plains area east of Denver to pick pumpkins and get in the Halloween mood.  It was here that I noticed how sandy and dry it was.  As we rode the hay wagon out to the pumpkin patch, we passed through an old pasture area full of big cottonwood trees.  In true savanna fashion, they were widely-spaced apart and had big open crowns.  Was this characteristic of areas within the high plains?  Big cottonwood savannas?  Who knows, I was a little distracted by all the "goatheads" that I got in the bottom of my sandles (a few were in my feet too!).  Goatheads, as the locals call them, are invasive, viney plants with seedheads that are rock-hard and full of little burs.  Other common names are "puncturevine" and "devil's eyelash" - scientific name Tribulus terrestris.  They grow all over hell and will grow in absolutely hellish conditions, thus the high plains!!

'Trailblazer' switchgrass???

I'll admit, there was a point in time when I thought that farming should be the fate of any large piece of property and that 'farmers' were experts of their environment and could do no wrong.  After all, farmers devote their entire lives to working outside, "improving" the land and making a living off of their efforts to tame Mother Nature.  Not to mention, I grew up in an old farmhouse and later helped to resurrect an even older farmhouse along with the surrounding farm land which was an ideal environment to groom me for this type of mindset.  As I got older and started to actually create my dream of having a working farm, I spent endless hours cutting autumn olive and buckthorn shrubs to restore the overgrown fields on the property and make way for animal pastures and cultivated crops.  In retrospect though, cutting the invasive shrubs was really the only positive aspect of my efforts and it turns out, farmers don't know shit about what's good for the environment, but they're out to grow food not wildlife.  Picture above shows brush piles from newly cleared field, circa 2001?

With the old fields restored to their open conditions, I was ready to plant.  One of the earliest plantings that I did was in an old field out back dubbed "the back forty", even though it was really only about an acre and a half.  I remember thinking that it would make a good hay field due to the soggy conditions that were present after snow melt in the spring and after a heavy rain.  Great, hayfields don't have to be worked in the spring.  I also remember looking at the bare ground that was the result of years of autumn olive growth, which provided heavy shade and thinking that I could easily plant this field to a grass/legume seed mix without any site prep.  The seed mix that I bought for this area was a pre-mixed blend of non-native hay grasses, clovers and alfalfa for hay plantings and pasture renovations.  At the time, I was employed by Highland Feed, a local farm supply store, making it easy to purchase the seed mix for this little site.  I believe it was called "pasture mix".  Anyways, the problem I'm having now is knowing exactly what was in that particular seed mix.  If I were a little more organized at the time, I would have kept the tag off of the bag or wrote down the species list that made up the pasture mix.  Picture above from 2004, when management was mowing and keeping the place "nice and neat".

This old field, "the back forty", is now known as "old mesic" and is our highest quality remnant prairie.  After a few years of mowing that soggy old field (and a little knowledge gain), I began noticing something significant that was occuring there and nowhere else.  Without the thick brush that once covered the entire area, the site received lots more sunlight, spawning the growth of plant species that had been suppressed for decades.  Along the edges of the field, I noticed a vibrant array of wildflowers and sedges growing where my mower failed to cut.  The following year, I didn't mow the field at all and was amazed at what I had discovered.  A diverse collection of native wildflowers covered the entire field.  Nowhere else on the property did I find the plants that were growing in this old field.  This area was most likely always used as a pasture due to the soggy conditions that made it hard to plow for crops in the spring.  As a result, the native plants have for the most part remained intact over time, waiting for the chance to once again flourish in the absence of human activity.  Since about 2005, we have assisted "old mesic" in it's recovery by removing invasive plants and reimplementing the historic fire regime that over thousands of years has shaped it into the diverse prairie it now is.  Picture above from 2006, when I stopped mowing.

Going back to my point though.  If I had better records of the pasture mix that I planted a decade ago, then I would know if the switchgrass that's growing out there is native or not.  Something is telling me that it's not native and that it was a component of the pasture mix.  For starters, native switchgrass is the first native warm-season grass to produce seed heads in the summer, usually in late June or early July.  It develops quickly in the spring and is mature by the 4th of July.  My switchgrass develops slowly in the spring and doesn't produce seed heads until early to late September.  This is not at all common of the native switchgrass.  After a little googlin', I found a cultivar of switchgrass known as 'Trailblazer switchgrass'.  This is a crop that is utilized by ranchers in the central US who need a drought tolerant plant that will withstand the long dry periods of late summer and extremely cold winter conditions in the upper great plains.  One of the key features, this cultivated variety grows slowly and consistently throughout the entire growing season, maturing in late summer.  Aha@!!  Exactly what I'm experiencing!  While it is not native, I have been watching it for the past several years and noticed that it is not spreading, so I'll leave it.  I would like to get the native strain established though as switchgrass would have been a perfect fit for Old Mesic!  Picture above shows the fresh seed heads from this strain of switchgrass that just developed in September (2 monthes after the native strain).

2011 Corner Lot Review

A few things regarding our corner lot prairie restoration for 2011. First, our prescribed burn (March 19) was one of the earliest that we've done. We started late in the day and despite the really dry fuel conditions, the relative humidity rose sharply as the sun set and made it hard to finish. At the lower (southern) end of the site, burning was really successful but as we moved north toward White Lake Road, we found more shade and the burn was less efficient. Timing the burn is always tricky and it's hard to resist taking advantage of good dry sunny weather. In the future, I think we'll need to be more patient and try timing later burns to suppress canada goldenrod and canada thistle. This will also help improve the presence of warm-season plants like big bluestem, indian grass and butterfly weed.

Second, Canada thistle is still prevalent in this prairie, yet I don't think it has really spread as rapidly as I originally thought. It is rhizomatous and able to spread and occupy large areas as a single clone, but I think the Canada goldenrod is giving it some healthy competition. So, controlling it with herbicide and/or cutting during the bloom period will still be a priority, though it can be spread out over the next several years without affecting the rest of the prairie's development. Keeping Canada thistle from going to seed will be the major challenge. It is a short-lived plant, so keeping it from reseeding might effectively reduce its occurence over time despite the fact that it spreads vegetatively underground.

Gray dogwood was very prevalent when we began work on this site, though with our annual burns, we've managed to reduce its occurence as well. A lot of experts warn of the danger of not eliminating rhizomatous shrubs such as gray dogwood and sumac due to the fact that they can spread rapidly and usually do with prescribed burning. Yet this varies from site to site and is not a particular problem with the corner lot. Small shrubs add vertical structure to a prairie too which is beneficial to certain ground nesting birds. So my opinion is keep it, but keep an eye on it too. In an effort to reduce the size and "wildness" of the cottage native plant gardens, we removed several of the big plants and transplanted them to the corner lot, locating them in the swale along Highland Hills Drive. These included boneset, ironweed, soft-stemmed bulrush, sweet flag, blue vervain, marsh blazing star and one prairie dock - pretty much everything that was there. These plants are flourishing at the corner lot and even flowered this year despite the fact that they were transplanted during the peak of growing season which typically is unsuccessful. The swale was a good spot for them because they would receive ample amounts of water naturally and survive any late season dry-spells. Our one prairie dock suffered a minor setback due to the fact that this plant has a substantial taproot, making it hard to transplant. The original basal leaves died in August, curling up and drying out, yet in late September there were a new set of leaves emerging. It will be interesting to see how it does. Prairie dock tends to establish slowly enough as it is, so I'm sure it will be several years before we see flowers. It would probably be advisable to plant more seedlings of this plant just to increase the chance of survival.

Dad made a few sweet purchases at the Six Rivers Native Plant Festival on September 17th. He managed to purchase two American Chestnut saplings!! These are extremely rare to find and the survival rate is quite slim due to the fact that the chestnut blight supposedly still exists on oak trees, so we'll see what happens with them. All we can do is be optimistic and treat them with extreme care. Maybe the annual fires will help suppress the existence of blight and help the trees mature and become strong enough to resist it. Perhaps the trees could survive long enough to produce chestnuts and start the next crop of trees, creating a perpetual crop of new seedlings? I managed to pick up a couple of rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium) seedlings from American Roots this year too, so we'll get those established on the corner lot as well.

Our shoulder experiment went pretty well for the first year too. In May, dad sprayed the shoulder with glyphosate killing most of the vegetation along the road where we want to get prairie grasses established. Some Canada thistle and sweet clover managed to escape the chemical warfare, but the grass we planted grew fairly well in the spaces between. A few plants even went to seed despite the crappy soil used to fill in the shoulder when White Lake Road and Highland Hills Drive got paved. It's hard to really know how much of it germinated and survived the hot summer (we had several weeks of 90'sish weather this summer) and it definitely looked sparse. All I know is that the shoulder at Pinefield filled in quite well with indian grass and big bluestem (that shoulder is in it's second growing season), so we'll just have to be patient, keep the invasives from flowering and continue to annually plant this area with more grass seed in order to get it really established. I think it will do fine. All the experts claim that big bluestem and indian grass are "clay buster" species, meaning that they can establish in hard, heavy soils like the fill dirt on the shoulder. The nice thing about the hard soil is that it is nutrient deficient, which reduces the amount of competition that occurs there, leaving the site open to lots of sunlight which is good for the native grasses. So it'll be interesting as always to watch this site continue to develop!

"Experimental wedge" - 4 year review

2011 marked the 4th growing season for what I call the "experimental wedge". This is a tiny little corner of Lily's Prairie where I experimented with planting prairie seeds in an unconventional way and didn't quite know how it would eventually work out. Looking back now though, it is very clear that this was not only my most successful method of prairie reconstruction, but also the quickest and most effective way of converting old cool-season hay fields into a diverse native tallgrass prairie. Picture below shows the area before restoration began.

Today the experimental wedge is dominated by two native warm-season grasses; indian grass and big bluestem grass. The old hay fields at the south end of Pinefield Farm, along White Lake Road, are classified as dry-mesic prairie for the most part (there are some areas where water stands for extended periods in the spring and therefore are classified as mesic and wet-mesic). These two native warm-season grasses would have been dominant in a dry-mesic Michigan prairie, and so is considered a success from that standpoint. I also planted wild bergamot, stiff goldenrod and butterfly weed in this area to add a little extra diversity, but I'll admit, my first objective was to eliminate the cool-season grasses and get the warm-season grasses established before I really added forb's to the mix. Picture below to the right shows the planting during the burn before we seeded the area.

In the second and third growing seasons (2009 & 2010), wild bergamot and stiff goldenrod really had a presence in this planting. Indian grass was the first to establish seed heads (a couple plants set seed the first year), but big bluestem is gaining momentum and the two are starting to balance out now. This year, wild bergamot had been reduced to about a quarter of its original presence, and stiff goldenrod is overabundant. Butterfly weed flowered during the third and fourth growing seasons, but the grasses are too thick now and it had trouble competing with their height for sunlight. I'm starting to think that this area would have almost been considered mesic, because even with the slope, the soil can hold significant amounts of moisture and is considered very fertile. Grasses would have outnumbered wildflowers in terms of quantity (not species) in a tallgrass prairie, so having the two grasses dominate seems appropriate. Picture below to the left shows the planting at the end of the second year.

The experimental wedge started in the spring of 2008 when I removed an old goat and chicken pen that I had assembled 10 years prior. After removing the fence, I wanted to redesign how the prairie transitioned into the yard area and so spent time designing and experimenting with different mowing patterns to create the edge of the tallgrass prairie. Once I was happy with the outline of the prairie, I decided to experiment with the corner closest to the barn and get some prairie plants growing so that I could further visualize future prairie reconstruction areas and start to understand the behavior and scale of the tallgrass prairie. I knew that the cool-season grasses would be aggressive and difficult to control against a warm-season dominated planting like a tallgrass prairie. Therefore, I experimented with a herbicide application that focused the most destruction to cool-season plants during a time of the growing season when they are most vulnerable. I sprayed the planting area of the experimental wedge with glyphosate, a non-specific herbicide, at the end of May, 2008. This is a time of year when conditions are warm during the day, cool at night and there is ample rainfall. Perfect for the growth of cool-season plants. After about two weeks, the plants in the wedge were all dead and brown, acting as a perfect fuel for a prescribed burn. This burn which took place in early June, removed all the dead thatch of the cool season grasses and prepared the soil for planting. By now, the nights were getting warm and the daytime temperatures were getting hot - perfect for the germination and establishment of warm-season prairie plants. Immediately following the burn, I planted a heavy amount of indian grass, big blue, wild bergamot, stiff goldenrod and butterfly weed. The wildflower seeds had been cold-moist stratified over the winter in my fridge, so they were ready to grow as soon as I planted them. Everything established quickly and has made for a very successful planting method. Picture below to the right shows planting toward the end of the third growing season when big bluestem has gone to seed, but before the indian grass has matured.

I truly attribute the success of this planting by the ruthless attack against the cool season plants early on, which reduced the competition for the prairie seedlings during their first couple of growing seasons. After they get established, they are able to hold their own and compete effectively against the non-native plants. The only reason why I didn't continue to use this method for the rest of Lily's Prairie was due to the heavy use of chemicals and the difficulty of burning a large area in the middle of the growing season when the weather is unpredictable. I opted for a more organic method of converting old hay fields into native grassland. More experiments will be required in the future to get good results without the use of poison chemicals. The only threat that I see now is the spread and growth of canada goldenrod (which is native, but was not planted) against the native grasses, so this will be interesting to watch over the next four years... Picture below to the left shows the big bluestem dominating in the fourth growing season!

Lily's Prairie, 2nd growing season review

Watching Lily's Prairie develop this season (second year) was a lot of fun, mainly due to the anticipation I've had in reconstructing a prairie in it's location. Lily's Prairie is located along the road at the base of the driveway where it is very visible to the public. This is essentially the most visible prairie on the property and because of this, has a special importance as an educational tool for other large lot property owners who feel overwhelmed by trying to conventionally manage (manicure) every square inch of their land. Prairie reconstructions are just one method of land management and can help property owners retain an open landscape without the costly and unproductive use of turf grass.

A prairie reconstruction in its second growing season doesn't typically blow your wig off in terms of color and diversity, but is probably as exciting to watch develop as any prairie due to the fact that you are completely responsible for its success. Lily's prairie like all of the others is an experiment. Preparing and planting a prairie reconstruction is one of the most difficult and variable environmental planning tasks there are. Soil variables, available moisture, land use history, existing plant species, proximity and quantity of invasive plant species and current land uses all contribute to the complexity and success of any prairie planting. In retrospect, this planting could have been far more successful with a different approach, but once you start you don't really want to go back.


Aside from a few aggressive plants, I think this prairie is developing quite well. Spotted knapweed, sweet clover, canada thistle and swallow-wort are the most problematic weeds in our neighborhood, but somehow we've managed to keep these invasives out of Lily's Prairie for the most part. Cool season grasses such as smooth brome and timothy are still dominant in this prairie as they were before we started. Continued late spring burns or fall burns followed by early spring glyphosate treatments will be required to suppress the cool season grasses and give the native wildflowers and warm season grasses a competitive advantage during establishment. All future burns should be immediately followed by seeding with native wildflowers, keeping in mind to plant species to their specific moisture zones.

Some beautiful plants that have established well this year include but are not limited to; yellow coneflower, golden alexanders, black-eyed susans, yarrow, new england aster, cup plant, tall sunflower, blue vervain, indian grass and pasture thistle. Getting the warm season grasses established is crucial to eliminating the cool season hay grasses and promoting diversity.

A Prairie Summer

Watching a prairie mature is so rewarding. After years now of watching my prairie develop and respond to a series of scientifically-based management strategies, I understand how people can have the opportunity to embrace and become fully
entrenched in the restoration of the world we live in. Since the fall of 2006, I have spent countless hours learning the native and non-native botany of SE Michigan and understand how the natural environment, for millenia, managed to coexist in harmony outside the implications of the modern era. But there's much more to it than just the plants that make up an ecosystem. That's my next step... which is really kind of the fun part about learning these things from an informal standpoint. You begin by developing your own interest in one particular category which starts the snowball effect. This leads to another part of the matrix, then another, and so on.

For now though, I thought it would be good to highlight some of the great progress that has occurred on the farm this summer. April brought us great weather for our prescribed burn regime.
We burned "Old Mesic", the original prairie remnant on the property which has furnished us with loads of native seed and a really good example of a diverse prairie habitat. As a result of that burn, we suppressed the heavy autumn olive infestation that was threatening the area and managed to stimulate the growth of several native plants that had been flying under the radar for the past few years. These include; big bluestem grass (pictured above), prairie dock, ironweed (pictured right), joe-pye weed (pictured below) and a new bloomer for the year, white meadowsweet Spiraea alba. I was also happy to see that my cut-stump herbicide treatment of autumn olive was a huge success as there was no regrowth in the treated areas. The strategy here will be to continue with spring burns until the warm-season grass is a bit more established, followed by brush-hogging the previous years autumn olive growth to keep it in check. Additional seeding of culver's root, tall meadowrue, angelica, mountain mint, rattlesnake master, cup plant and foxglove beardtongue will also be an important factor in adding more early-blooming forb diversity to the site.


















More on the other prairies in the next post...

Bridge to Nowhere

Last year (spring 2010) was the first year of site restoration work that commenced on the corner lot prairie. Since then we have already learned a lot about the hydrology of the site; including where the water table is located relative to the surface of the site, how former perc holes have punctured and exacerbated the flow of ground water to the surface and most importantly how stormwater enters and exits the site. In earlier posts I illustrated how stormwater now enters the site via an outlet structure at White Lake Road. With this new outlet structure in place, large amounts of runoff are now distributed onto the property, creating a well defined creek through the south central part of the site. As of last fall, we began construction of a little boardwalk-like bridge over this seasonal creek. This bridge allows us to enjoy and explore the wet/mesic conditions that occur at the southern end of the site, giving us improved access for future stewardship activities.



Our bridge can be classified in the LEED Platinum category due to the fact that all building materials are made from 100% recycled materials. The foundation of this simple structure is comprised of a salvaged 40 foot utility pole that was cut in half to make two 20' structural beams. These beams were then layed down to span the breadth of the creek. From there 2x6 western redcedar planks, refurbished from a deck tear-out job that I helped my boss remove this past spring, were layed across the old utility poles to create a nice weathered decking material. A great use of materials that would have otherwise contributed to a landfill!!

First burn of 2011

Despite all the cold weather and ample snowfall from this winter, we managed to conduct our first controlled burn of the season last Saturday (March 19th). After a week of weather in the 50's and a heavy rain, the snow quickly disappeared and allowed the sun to dry out the remains of last seasons prairie plants.

The corner lot prairie remnant was our best candidate for the first burn because the site has a good southern aspect and a fairly open canopy allowing the sun to quickly dry out the site. It's amazing to notice how important 'aspect' is in determining how likely sites would have burned historically. Aspect would have influenced tree development and that would have influenced the amount of moisture that was retained on site throughout the growing season.
North-facing slopes would have probably developed a thicker understory of blue-beech, serviceberry, red maple and other shade-tolerant plants that like cool, moist sites. South and west facing slopes would have had a thinner canopy due to the drier nature of the site which would have led to frequent fires and slower plant development. In other words, prairies and savannas would have likely occurred more frequently on south and west facing slopes, which is how our corner lot remnant is characterized. The picture above shows what the site looked like just prior to our controlled burn.



On the day of our burn, the weather was as cold as it's ever been for one of our burns. Temperatures only reached about 40 degrees and there was a slight wind out of the north. We got a late start on the fire and though the sunny skies helped the fire burn well initially, as the sun set the temperatures dropped quickly and the relative humidity rose enough that the fire almost put itself out completely. Therefore, our site burned well where we started on the south end, but by the time we reached the north end, the burn was very patchy. The weather since has been abnormally cool so it may be another week or so before we do any more burning.

2010 RECAP - corner lot project

With February pretty much out of the way and spring right around the corner, I've started thinking about what to expect this season from our corner lot project. We had a lot of success in 2010 and should be pleasantly surprised when things start growing in 2011.

On the corner lot, which was added to the roster in the early part of 2010, we conducted a very successful prescribed burn in March. Immediately after the burn, we went to work rerouting an old drainage ditch that ran along the west property boundary down towards a hardwood swamp area that leads to Duck Lake. Our goal with the ditch was to reconfigure it to meander through the lower end of the corner lot more naturally like a stream. By doing this, the ditch looks more natural and dissipates water more effectively, reducing sediment pollution in the hardwood swamp. We also planted a few white pines and caged some nice oak saplings on the site to provide visual screening to the nearby residence.

Throughout the growing season we noticed a variety of native wildflowers that had sprung up due to our burning and weed management activities. Among them were Culver's Root (pictured), Fringed Loosestrife, Joe-Pye Weed, Boneset, Butterfly Weed, Thimbleweed and Saw-tooth Sunflower.

From our lakefront native plant garden at the Cottage we were able to produce a lot of seed from some of the more significant and rare native species. The nice thing about growing them at the Cottage is that there are no large herbivores (ie, deer) to damage plants during the growing season, so we get a lot of seed from these plants (over-nutrified water from White Lake helps the plants grow like they're on steroids too!!). Cottage grown plants include Blue Vervain, Turtlehead, Marsh Blazing Star, Great Blue Lobelia, Cardinal Flower, Ironweed, Soft-Stemmed Bulrush and Tussock Sedge. We were fortunate enough to plant a lot of this seed before our last snow storm hit. The snow will help work the seed into the soil as it melts in the spring and will (hopefully) satisify any cold-stratification requirements that the seed needs for germination.

I'm currently working on getting our burn plans finalized for this season and will hopefully get a chance to finish the bridge and do some more brush removal before the ground thaws.

Landscape Scale_REV

Yesterday my dad and I went for a hike at the Field Trial Area of Highland State Recreation to see how the habitat restoration work was coming along. At this particular area of the park, the Department of Natural Resources has spent a significant amount of time working to restore the area to native grasslands. More specifically, they have implemented prescribed burning and weed management to bring the land back to its former "black oak barrens" character. What amazes me most about this place is the immense scale of the restoration. There's really no other place locally where you can see black oak barrens at the landscape scale. There are a lot of small high quality examples around which are nice when analyzing specific plants, but the quality of this place is its grand scale that allows you to understand how the area looked historically.

This time of the year you can see alot more of the variation among different forms of vegetation. Pines stand in dark contrast to the oaks, while the native prairie grasses (orange clumps) can be easily distinguished from the wildflowers and non-native grasses. In a couple of areas, the native grasses are so bright that it feels like it illuminates the space around you. Little bluestem, the most colorful of the native grasses, adds a lot of color to the winter landscape, which is otherwise dull and drabby (especially on a cloudy day).