Prometheus on the Prairie

Me overseeing a burn at Kleinfelter Park, St. Joseph.

It is paradoxical that prairies require burning. It is paradoxical because, in North America, many of us think of the prairie as “pure” nature—as a kind of dry Boundary Waters Canoe Area on land. Our romantic notions of nature suggest that the best nature is that which is least impacted (and thus corrupted) by humans.

But the prairie in many ways is the result of, or co-evolved with, humans. Mythologically speaking, Prometheus stole fire from the gods, and the homo sapiens who migrated from Africa, through Asia, down through the Bering straight, were his ancestors who had appropriated fire in many ways (indeed it was integral to their culture), including the burning of landscapes.

Their use of fire to burn landscapes had multiple purposes, so historical anthropologists tell us. One reason was to open up the landscape to increase their ability to see the horizon. Such opening allowed our Native American predecessors to more easily see their enemies and avoid them. Jesus tells us to forgive our enemies, but on the prairies and plains of North America, I imagine the imperative was to avoid your enemies. Being they were hunters and gatherers, it was much easier to pick up and leave a fruitful hunting site than it is for we moderns to pick up and leave, due to our permanent dwellings.

So mobility, avoiding enemies, and better hunting were all reasons to burn the landscape. And out of this culture of fire evolved an ecosystem of flora and fauna that was without trees (except in lower, wet places, such as along rivers, where fires had less access), an ecosystem rich in diversity, beauty and, yes, nature! But it is not a pure state of nature—if by that we mean lacking human interference or interaction.

We can say that the prairie and homo sapiens “co-evolved.” I personally think of the prairie as “paradisal”—a paradise not unlike that of Eden, where humans have their place in nature, a place that was integral, ordered, and not external to nor disordered.

Obviously my paradisal view of nature is also rooted in myth, in this case the Hebrew origin myth from the Book of Genesis. It is based on the idea that a landscape of stunning beauty and productivity evolved from this partnership between homo sapiens and the creation in which they found themselves. It might be a bit much to put all this on prairies, but that is what it says to me each spring when we’re out burning.

Burning a wetland has many benefits, among them is burning off years of accumulated Cattail growth. Here the guys are out on a wetland while here is still ice, on which we created a firebreak to manage the burn.

Plugs and Pollinators

With more and more land being developed for one purpose or another, and more farm land being put into production, pollinator habitat has been in decline. We've been restoring our 80 acre farm to native plants for some time now, and there have always been monarchs. Like many, however, we've noticed a decline in monarch presence over the last ten years. But this year we saw an increase in monarch activity. 

I took this photo a couple weeks ago when the Stiff Goldenrod was in full swing. Had I taken a close-up photo, you would see that these plants were not only full of monarchs, but bees as well. you can see the bees on the flower toward the bottom of the screen. 

For the first time in a long time our grove, made up of Norway Pine and Spruce trees, was full of monarchs. By full I mean thousands of them, all flitting about as one walked through the grove. They gathered and rested about two weeks before flying south on the grand migration to Mexico.

Though at a distance, you can see the branches of this spruce tree full of monarchs, hanging like bats in the shade of the grove. 

We have been growing wildflower and grass plugs in the greenhouse now for two years, and have been plugging them into existing prairies and into newer prairie plots. The advantage of beginning a prairie from plugs instead of seed is that we can design it , creating swaths of particular colors and transitioning into other colors. 

This is part of a larger project in which the homeowners are restoring their property to woodland natives, all which will be done by seed. But this plot, which is highly visible, we decided to do with plugs. We put down several inches of sand to suppress weed growth and to put the plugs into. 

The homeowners know that these will need to be watered for four weeks or so. But after that the plugs will have rooted into the soil below and will do well on their own.

Here is another project where we removed all the old landscaping and replanted the area with plugs Conventional landscaping, with its landscape fabric and mulch, is doomed to eventual renovation for two reasons: plants don't do well when their roots are covered with fabric, and cultivars (or hybridized plants) generally cannot reproduce themselves. As a result, over time, the vegetation of conventional landscapes get thinner and thinner. 

By inserting approximately 1.25 plugs every square foot, we saturate the area with natives, which should out-compete the weeds and will eventually reproduce themselves, filling up the area with native vegetation. 

One side note: Another activity of August is checking on prairies that we seeded in the last couple years to see how they're doing. It is always very satisfying to see a plot that has come in well. The photo below is of a woodland restoration that we seeded in the spring of 2016. Here we are, in its second summer of growth, showing a flush of Brown Eyed Susans and Blue Bells, two flowers that complement each other nicely.