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| Tom's Blog
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| 5/11/2008 | Remarkable Resilience of Shooting Stars This past winter we cleared the final unrestored piece of land at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. This was what I call the "East Basin", an isolated valley at the east end of our property. This 4 acre parcel should really be part of our neighbors land, but due to the vagaries of surveying it ended up with us. It was probably too far from the barn to have much grazing. The 1937 air photo showed this land as completely open. Since it faces south and west, I assume it was probably prairie remnant. In the years since, it gradually filled in, with elms, aspen, oak, honeysuckle, buckthorn, and two small patches of garlic mustard. It was so densly vegetated that one could not see the other side of the basin. We cleared virtually all of this land last winter, leaving only the white oaks and an occasional open-grown black oak. Most of the larger trees were removed as fire wood, leaving behind a ground layer with lots of twigs and small logs. We decided not to plan any restoration work until we saw what came up. Now things are showing. Among the "good" plants that are now growing are quite a few shooting star (Dodecatheon meadii), which are flowering profusely. It is really encouraging to see these native plants poking their stems and leaves up above the woody debris remaining from the restoration. This plant is able to remain alive in the nonflowering state for years underneath deep shade, but as soon as sunlight is available, it thrives. The photos here give an idea of how this plant looks in the East Basin.
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| 5/8/2008 | Starting to Attack Brambles Last year we showed that treating bramble resprouts with Garlon 3A was very effective if done early in the season, when they just come up after burns. You need a good hot burn to top-kill the brambles. Then wait a few weeks until the dormant buds show enough leaves to spray. They form a rosette that can be sprayed without much peripheral damage. Last year I marked some areas and followed this technique. It turned out that not all the shoots come up at once, so you have to go back and spray again. To be sure, we sprayed three times. This really got rid of the brambles, and some "good" plants came up. But would this be permanent? Today I revised the marked areas to see what they looked like. No brambles. Lots of bunch grasses which are probably savanna grasses, and a variety of forbs. So the technique looks like it works. Yesterday I surveyed areas on our south slope that we had burned a month ago. Bramble resprouts large enough to spray, so two of us spent the whole day spraying. We'll keep monitoring and spraying until all the major patches are done. We are planning an all out attack on some major red raspberry pathes in our savannas. With the great savanna burn we had two weeks ago, all the raspberries are top-killed. It is still too early to spray them, but by the end of next week they should be ready. The seed viability of red raspberries in soil is very long. Data from the literature show that they may last as long as 100 years! But once the habitat is shaded by a lot of good savanna vegetation, they may go dormant again. We'll keep at it. |
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| 5/1/08 | May Day! May is probably the nicest month of the whole year for a restorationist. We no longer have to anticipate coming events; things are really happening. Some of our burns were done a few weeks ago and the sites are developing nicely. Our most recent burn was done in the ridge-top savannas 9 days ago, and things are not as far along. Today I saw shooting star, bellwort and golden Alexanders in bud, bloodroot, marsh marigold, early buttercup, wood anemone, early meadow rue, and birds-foot and dooryard violets in flower. Also, lots of species are still in the vegetative state but are easily recognizable, such as pale purper coneflower, all the Silphiums, swamp saxifrage, arrow-leaf aster, zig zag goldenrod, woodland thistle, and tinker's weed. |
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