What If I Can’t Burn?

On page 65 of our current catalog we advise in boldface type, “Burning is the single most important management practice for native plantings.” Wayne R. Pauly, in his booklet How to Manage Small Prairie Fires, succinctly summarizes the benefits of regular burning:

“Fire rejuvenates a prairie; more plants flower, produce seed, grow taller and are generally more robust than the previous year. Specifically, fire lengthens the growing season for most native prairie plants and shortens it for Eurasian ‘weeds.’ Fire increases valuable nutrients through indirect stimulation of microbial activity in the soil, and by releasing a small amount of nutrients from the ash. Fire also controls invasion of shrubs and trees.”

As many customers regularly remind us, though, burning often is not a realistic option due to local restrictions, site conditions or other limiting factors. What then?

My largest native planting is roughly 1,000 square feet, covering a slight incline that parallels and separates my gravel driveway from a front yard filled with four raised vegetable garden beds, bark and rock paths and a tiny hand-mowed fescue lawn. Our little prairie was installed by a Prairie Moon crew about 16 years ago from a custom seed mix tailored largely to my wife’s predilection for all hues of the color purple.

We did a lot of hand-weeding in early years, but now (except for persistent weedy Goldenrod) the planting annually affords us months of low-maintenance delight in its variety of textures, color, succession of blooms and the many insects and birds attracted to it. I’m sure that to some passersby the area looks like an overgrown, weedy jumble but we appreciate its vigor and subtleties and the visual screen that it provides the yard in summer.

I’ve often wished that I could burn the area but several mature lilac bushes crowd its western border and on the north the planting marches right up to our custom-built iron railing for the steps from the driveway to the yard. The lay of the land makes it clear that smoke from a burn would be channeled up the hill and directly toward the house.

Blossoming Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) and young New England Asters (Aster novae-angliae) are among the species nestling our railing in June.

Our prairie’s final fall flourish each year is a nearly blush-inducing explosion of New England Aster blossoms. The plants on our incline reach heights in excess of five feet, so the vegetative mass that they leave behind is quite dense. Through the growing season we trim leaners back around our railing, tie some upright and pull up others encroaching on the driveway. Seed drift has resulted in new aster stands on the downwind side of our yard.

We find beauty in the shapes and textures of the brown thicket that our planting becomes in late fall. We enjoy watching the birds and small wildlife that frequent the site and observing the way that snow transforms the scene differently every winter.

Volunteer wild violets and Amethyst Shooting Star (Dodecatheon amethystinum) are among the first blossoms to appear in spring.

Not far behind are the asparagus-like shoots of Blue Wild Indigo (Baptisia australis), which for a time in June provide our prairie’s primary color.

Later in the summer, blossoms like Culver’s Root (Veronicastrum virginicum) and Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) assume starring roles.

In September, New England Aster (Aster novae-angliae) completely steals the show.

As daylight hours dwindle and nightly frosts increase, our planting assumes its dormant look.

Our plants’ brown sketches on the hill’s white canvas provide artful relief from winter’s sometimes drab landscape.

In early spring I don work gloves and manually remove the bulk of last year’s growth. I bend the stalks from side to side to break them off, trying not to tug up roots. I dump dozens of armfuls into the woods of the adjacent valley below the county road, hoping that remaining seeds will spread from there.

With this annual ritual I substitute my labor for the more dramatic de-thatching action of fire. The resulting clean, smooth appearance of our berm before the advent of the first spring sprouts (alas, I couldn’t find any photos) is very satisfying. I can never help, though, looking enviously down the valley at the large production fields freshly burned by our nursery crew. Their tidy black expanses will green up weeks before my little prairie does.