Garden Pests and Diseases: Is this really legal?, 1 by dodecatheon

dodecatheon wrote:
P'Ville,

First off.....The area I am turning into prairie is small...about 500 square feet, but I will double it's size next year. My personal experience with re-creating prairies is strictly the suburban cowboy type. I volunteer at nearby state parks, so I get experience in large scale prarie and savannah and wetland management and restoration from there. At my house, I'm doing a re-creation, not a restoration, as this subdivision was a swampy cow pasture for many decades previous to it's being a sub-division. I will post pictures of it tomorrow. It doesn't look like very much now. In fact, it looks quite dead right about now! We've had a couple of hard frosts. Equil is giving me way too much credit!

I am experimenting, so half of that 500 square feet is being planted with plugs, i.e., plants that are already growing, and as I can afford them. This is the half that I usually burn parts of every spring or fall, but I will give them a rest for this next year and see what happens. These plants have mature root systems that go very deep and can withstand the short amount of time that a "prairie fire" exposes them to high heat. Prairie fires burn very quick and very hot, depending on the fuel load. There are pros and cons on whether to burn in Spring or Fall, so I try to switch off. Also, I try not to burn the praying mantis egg cases, or any other egg cases, so I mark them off, and burn around them. The experts say you should burn no more than a third of your prairie in any one year, so you spare the bulk of the insect egg cases and larvae.

I volunteer to help at the burns the state parks do around here, too. Fire~Fire~

The other 250sf I seeded last November. I can't start burning it until next fall, at least.

The only picture I really have of the area is a picture I took before I got started with my little project....and it's a picture of an echinacea monoculture! I will enclose it. DH had gotten some "Wildflowers" Meadow Mix in a tin from Home Depot (about 5 years ago)and spread them there....and the echinacea is what survived and prospered! Oh, and the da*n dame's rocket. The dame's rocket I have about killed off, and the echinacea I give away to friends and/or offer up on freecycle.org. I got rid of a good chunk of it in one day this way. About 1/3rd of the entire prairie. I want echinacea....just not THAT much of it.

The seeded half of the prairie..well, here I made a mistake. The soil was very compacted due to foot traffic, to the point of hardpan, so I turned it up with a roto-tiller, prior to the Round-up and seeding. This caused a population explosion of queen anne's lace (QAL)! QAL LOVES disturbed ground. Like I said...I did see some native seedlings in there. I am going to mow everything to the ground, with the bag on, and I'll see if I can't get rid of lots of QAL plants and seeds in this way. I'll be using the "glove of death" next year for sure! The glove of death is a nifty thing.

I recommend Round-Up, or glyphosate, for these reasons: It breaks down into it's harmless components in the soil after 5 days, and is not toxic after 24 hours. Even when freshly applied, It's harmless to adults, kids and animals (ask Equil, I spilled a quart of the stuff down my legs at her house once, I was soaked in it, and am here to tell the tale! Wouldn't want to do that with Garlon!), however, it will kill fish. Do NOT spray it near your pond, or any body of water. Keep in mind, the spray will drift, and it will kill any plant it touches, so you still have to be careful. It can take up to 2 weeks to see the results, so be patient...you're not going to have a drooping, dead looking plant the next day in most cases.

The Black Tarp method is another way to deal with your weed seed "bank". What you do is, you spread a black or dark coloured tarp over the area you want to plant. You leave it there for one entire growing season. The heat of the sun will heat the top couple of inches of soil to the point where it kills the weed seed, and any other seed. On a sunny summer day...it gets to about 190 degrees under there! The following planting season, you are all set. This method requires patience, which is in short supply at my house, hence the Round-Up method, LOL!

The "lasagna" method that Equil mentioned is good, too. Though I would add that in addition to about 10 layers of wet newspaper, you need about 2 inches of sand to go on top of it. And on top of that, about an inch of mulch. Looks better, too. JMHO! Affix a bulb auger to your drill, drill planting holes and plant away! Right away! That's how we did it at the state park I volunteer at! I will go there tomorrow and send you some pictures.