It's been a fairly decent summer when it comes to prairie observing. Earlier this year we conducted the first successful burn of all the prairie plantings at Heavy Duty Acres. While it didn't seem to put any end to the frustrating early-season non-native grasses, it does seem like it might have slowed down the black medic. On top of that, it might even have been the reason (scarification) that some of the seeds we broadcast as many as seven years ago finally sprouted and bloomed, like the butterfly milkweed above (orange, in June, with foxglove penstemon). That might be giving the fire too much credit, though, because I'm pretty sure any of these plants wouldn't bloom the first year...but I could be wrong.

We also saw early blooms of sand coreopsis...

...and about six times as many pale purple coneflowers as last year!

Here's that butterfly milkweed in July. I just can't get enough of these things...there were two of them this year. Not captured in digital photography are the two gay feather plants we saw for the first time this year.

And finally, what I find especially exciting, is this new swath of milkweed. This is the one the Monarchs need. The neat thing about this is that I know it's a habitat for something...something that's losing habitat all the time. I know it's small, but it feels really good to put something back where it belongs.

But outside of the close-ups, there's really not that much to look at through the camera lens. For those who are really following all this progress, you'll remember seeing the Pink moon burns. This photo illustrates what grew in that spot where we put in the prairie by plugs. Honestly, outside of the milkweed we seeded, I don't see a whole lot of evidence of those plugs.

But what we also aren't seeing in this planting is a lot of Canada goldenrod, which is thick just to the west of this small plot (as seen above...it's almost like a line drawn in the sandy soil). You might remember that we deadheaded all that goldenrod last fall to keep it from spreading. It worked. For now this area is mostly milkweed (good), robins fleabane (good), grey-headed coneflower (good), and shasta daisies (not so good). We pulled plenty of other crap out of here this year...it'll be a year or two to get this one in order. Or three.

And in this, the main, the westest, and eldest of the plantings, we're seeing those few butterfly milkweed plants, the gay feather, a LOT of grey headed coneflowers, some pale purple coneflowers, foxglove penstemon, sand coreopsis, a little bit of bea balm, some nice Indian grass, and a tiny bit of big blue stem. But it's still full of some pretty ugly early season grasses. I can live with it. We're making progress. Heck, it's been seven years, no reason to start getting anxious about anything now.

What it's all about with the prairie, I guess, is introductions, and the plants that get along well with each other will ultimately have the run of the place. I used to say, "I can't wait to see what it looks like next year." Now I say, "I can't wait to see what it looks like when I'm 60." But I can wait.

PINK MOON 2009 Holy Thursday

BEAVER MOON 2008 Prairie by plugs

HARVEST MOON 2008 Early Summer Growth

STRAWBERRY MOON 2008 An intro to Heavy Duty Acres