The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

All too often, when we look around at our landscape in Southern Michigan, what we see is actually not Michigan plants, but alien species of plants from other countries. Any roadside has quack grass, brome grass, Queen Anne’s Lace, chicory, and dandelions growing along it; all weeds and all aliens. Of course not many Native Michigan plants would grow in a spot that is constantly disturbed by snow plows in winter and lawnmowers in summer. Prairie plants, which are Michigan natives, could grow along our roads if they weren’t mowed, and in a very few places they do.

Alien plants colonize disturbed areas very quickly. Their seed usually likes to germinate in freshly disturbed soil such as a roadside. Weedy aliens are not choosy about rich or lean soil. They are considered weeds just because of that and also because they produce so many seeds which are distributed as far and wide as possible. Native plants are usually choosier about soil and habitat, but once established and growing well, they can usually hold their own as long as the soil is not disturbed.

Historically our native prairies thrived in spots in Southern Michigan because those sites were regularly burned. Either started by lightning strikes or intentionally set by Native Americans. So prairie plants are usually deep rooted and have crowns where the growing stems emerge from, safely below the surface of the soil where they’re not killed by fires.

Some species of oak trees are adapted to fire, too. Their bark is thick enough that the living inner cells of the tree are not damaged by the heat of a grass fire sweeping through. So historically in numerous spots in Southern Michigan we had landscapes of widely spaced oak trees with special prairie plants growing in the soil in between the oak trees. These are called oak openings or sometimes referred to as savannas.

When Michigan was first settled, the first places to be farmed were usually these open areas. The settler would naturally be attracted to spots where he didn’t have to go to all the labor of cutting down the trees before he could begin to plow the soil and get a crop in. For this reason many of the oak openings and their special plants were lost. Since the Native American were pushed out, other oak openings were not burned anymore. So in the few openings that weren’t plowed, the shrubs and saplings of the adjacent woods started to grow in the rich soil , shading out the oak opening prairie plants. The edge of the woods slowly crept into the prairie and displaced the prairie plants.

One of the exciting aspects of habitat restoration (and I mean exciting!) is the use of fire to reclaim those prairies. Controlled burns have been used now at least for 20 years to help the prairies that are left, keeping them healthier by burning out the aliens, shrubs and trees that cannot survive the fire and reclaiming their lost edges.

In another blog I will tell you about the places in S. Michigan were these kinds of restoration practices are happening.

Bye now,

Judy