Assets of a Native Prairie | Volunteer Gardener

Step One of re-establishing a native prairie is eradication of the competition meaning the non-beneficial plants. Step Two is re-seeding. We tour a 117 acre meadow and learn about its evolution with the person spearheading the restoration effort.

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– Middle Tennessee is one of my favorite places in the world and I’m out here at Grow Wild, where they talk about natural designing with native plants. And we’re right outside of Fairview. I’m here with Mike Berkeley today to talk about something that is a great shock to me and a great pleasure

Which is to discover that there is a prairie in Tennessee and it’s something that we can establish or in this case reestablish. And Mike out here on this 117 acre area. I know you’re reestablishing prairies and it’s not all tall grasses now, is it?

– No, it’s not, it’s a lot of flowering plants and I think that’s the misconception that a lot of people have is that you look at the prairies and a lot of the prairies are of course mostly grasses, and that’s great for your fall and winter interest.

But from spring on into fall, a lot of flowering going on. – Well, as we walk along here in this wonderful area that you’ve done, I see a lot of changes through the year. And what have you done to get this going? What did it start like?

– Right off the bat, foremost is to eradicate or clean out the competition. And the most competitive plant, invasive exotic plant that we have here is the one plant that we all like for our lawns, and it’s very competitive and it’s the fescue.

So the first thing we did since this was a cow pasture is to start burning and spraying to eradicate the fescue that got rid of our competition. – Now, once you’ve done that, are you done? – Oh, no, no, no. You’ve got to reseed. Now everywhere that there was fescue,

At one time there was probably some native plant growing there, some native grass or native flowering plant. So what we have to do is fill in the voids and when you get rid of the competition, you get rid of the fescue, then you have to reseed.

And what we did in this prairie is that we actually collected seed off of the plants that were there before the killing of the fescue. And then once we get rid of the fescue we put that seed back down. Perfect example of that is the coreopsis, the lance leaf coreopsis.

This plant was occurring here before we started our reseeding. And what we do is we let this go to seed each year. We’ll collect seed off of it, sell it in a prairie mix, and also reseeding it down here. So everything that you see in the prairie here

Was already established here, but was in very small amounts because of the fescue being highly competitive. So once we got rid of the fescue, it was like free reign and all the flowering plants start coming in. – Well, I see all kinds of interesting things here,

And one of the things that I’m just learning about today is this fascinating plant, which is an iron weed I believe. – Iron weed. – How big will it get? – Oh, it can get up to nine feet tall in some cases. These here, because we have burned this this year

They’re a little shorter than the norm. So where you see about a four or five foot plant here, next year will probably be about seven, eight, nine feet tall. So they can get quite large. – Oh, it’s just incredible. Now, with all of these different plants that you have,

Just this wealth of biodiversity, I imagine that you see all kinds of wonderful wildlife out here. – Absolutely. We’ve noticed a lot more Bob whites a lot more indigo buntings, many more birds. Think about it. All these seed heads from the flowering plants are perfect for feeding the birds and it’s definitely habitat area for the rabbits and little animals. – Now, there’s something I have never seen before and I would think it was some orchid or something exotic, but this beautiful white flower.

– Right, it’s the Hymenocallis littoralis. It’s the spider lily. And it’s very appropriately named I think because that flower looks like a, almost like a large spider. It’s related to the amaryllis, that same flowering plant that we like to have for Christmas. And it will grow out in the prairies. – That’s incredible.

Now over here, the yellow with the brown on top. – Appropriate name for this is the prairie cone flower. It’s not truly a prairie or a cone flower like the echinacea, like the purple cone flower. This is more related to the black eyed Susan. It’s Ratibida pinnata

– Oh, and I’ve bought that and I have it at my home so I’m so happy to see it as part of a natural landscape. And behind it, there is this wonderful little bit of purple and pink coming through which I smelled as we came down here. – Right, yeah, great fragrance.

And everybody knows that as the bee balm, that’s Monarda fistulosa. Loves open sights, very drought tolerant, and butterflies will be all over it. – Well, now this is the wonderful mid-summer prairie which is just different than I ever would’ve thought. What happens in the fall? – Oh, that’s when things really are kicking.

And of course you’ve got some fall flowering plants but it’s the grasses, which is the major component of a prairie. Beautiful fall colors, some of ’em in red, some in gold, some even the flower heads themselves just beautiful in different colors. And I think what’s even prettier about the grasses

In the fall is on a breezy, warm breezy day in autumn you get a music out of these grasses from the shush sound of the wind blowing through. So, and a lot of movement. And I think that’s the beauty of prairies is that it’s not just for the sight, the senses,

But you’ll get the fragrance as we mentioned with the bee balm and you’ll get the movement and you get the sound of the prairie. And it’s really beautiful. – Well, it’s something that delights a lot of the senses and the wildlife, certainly, it brings a lot into your life. And oh, I guess with the prairie there’s no deadheading or picky gardening work is there? – No. – Of all the land forms that we deal with

This has to be ultimately the most low maintenance. You know, all you have to do is first get your ducks in a row at the beginning and make sure that you eradicate all the invasive exotics as much as you can to get rid of the competition. And then the reseeding comes in

And then you just kind of let ’em go. One thing I will promote though on maintaining a prairie, is a periodic burn. It’s just healthy. To really make a prairie work, you’re gonna, you pretty much have to get rid of the winter layer and then also eradicate some of the fescue out here. And first step is to burn. This is called a prescribed burn or organized burn. You burn to help to eradicate the, the exotic invasive fescue.

And then also for reseeding, it’ll be bare ground. And we’ll come in and reseed this, this field. We try to burn on a two year cycle, and that allows two years of fuel to collect and dried plants and grasses. You know, there’s a lot of history of even the Native Americans, you know,

Centuries ago burning to burn out and kind of eradicate the woodies, get rid of some of the trees to open up big spaces so that the buffalo were able to stop and graze and give ’em hunting grounds. – Now in the spring, what do you start to see? That must be a really fun time. – Yeah, especially right after a burn. And because you do, basically you’ll do your burn in the spring, and then right after that out of the ashes, it is just like a phoenix.

You’ll see this, this just flush of color. Right off the bat, the prairie phlox will be blooming. That’s a pink phlox. It gets only about six inches tall, very fragrant, and it looks like a pink carpet. And then after that, of course all the taller plants start coming up.

And I think some of the beauty is really catching it in the dead of winter. And you know, you’re not gonna find evergreen here. And of course you’re not gonna find flowering plants in the dead of December or January but you’re gonna see the forms, the textures of the grasses

And the spent flower heads. And I think that’s the beauty on its own, especially with the snow on the ground. – Now I’m thinking, of course I want one and I’m thinking I want one now. And I know I’ve seen places where people put plugs and people buy plants. What do you think of that and what do I need to know as a homeowner who wants one?

– Well, let’s be honest about it. This is not gonna be an overnight deal. It’s not like some of those instant landscapes we’ve done before with other native plants. This takes a little time. Number one, you’re doing it from seed which makes it very economical.

But then at the same time, patience comes in and it takes really about two to three years to really see an established prairie. – Now, of course, very few of us have the luxury of having 117 acres. So what would be really the smallest area that you think someone should think of? – Oh, a quarter acre lot. I mean, it could be anything. Think about, we have been using prairie plants for decades.

A purple cone flower, the solidagos, the goldenrods, phlox. We’ve been using prairie plants already in our gardens. Well, what we’re doing now is looking at prairie plants in a mosaic and spread out by seed and more naturalistic style. Pretty much where they land that’s where they’re gonna grow.

And that’s part of the prairie is that they do have a little bit of chaos in there, in their design. But look at the, look at the form, the textures, the flowering that goes on constantly so. – Well, it’s a completely different aesthetic and it certainly is a wonderful idea for people

That really want to incorporate a real natural look in their homes and to, as you said incorporate those flowers we’re used to but want something really different. And I really appreciate the chance to get out here and look at this. And oh, it’s so exciting.

So thanks so much and maybe one day I’ll have a prairie. – Oh, I’ll make sure you do. – Well thank you so much for watching and if you liked this video you’re gonna love everything else that we have in our archives and running currently. Go to our channel, click subscribe, and continue watching. See you next time.