Management
What’s working well for the meadow is the maintenance strategy of using primarily native, tall, warm-season grasses that out-compete the nonnative weeds, plus the lack of fertilizer or irrigation. Sam says he “pulled a few weeds the first year but very few after that.” He hopes that “we’ve created a sustainable prairie where you don’t need an army of people constantly weeding to keep out undesirable plants.”
As expected, the tall grasses also kept the native wildflowers much smaller in size than what one would see in a garden.
The meadow is mowed once a year, in December. (A burn would be more effective but the flammability of the grasses would prove too scary in that location.)
The Plants
The four primary grasses of Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Switch Grass and Indian Grass make up 80 percent of the plants. Did you know that grasses sequester more carbon than trees? It’s because their roots die and carbon stays in the soil.
Seen in mid-August, clockwise from upper left: Giant Ironweed, Blue Ageratum, Cenna marylandia, and Prairie Partridgepea.
From top: Southern Slender Ladies Tresses (a native orchid), and the white flowers of Boneset.
Not shown: Sunflower, Monarda, Grey-headed coneflower, Blackberry, Gaura, Mountain Mint, Fox Sedge, Rush Junkus, Coreopsis., Eupatorium, Baptisia, and Canada Goldenrod.
Explore more plant photos here.
Wildlife in the Meadow
The list of critters using this biodiverse acre is long and changing but just recently an Applied Agriculture class visited recently with insect nets and “captured things like milkweed bugs, grasshoppers, goldenrod soldier beetles, many species of butterflies and moths, bumblebees, carpenter bees, halictid bees. There are lots of earthworm holes, ants as well as pillbugs and sowbugs feeding on the organic matter laying on the soil. We find deer poop and signs of deer browsing from time to time.”
Each spring the course hosts a BioBlitz sponsored by the Audobon Society, during which these photos were captured of insects and reptiles, including some award-winners. (It’s hoped that publicity, like this post, will bring more locals to next spring’s BioBlitz. Happy to help if I can!)
