Day 230

The total kill treatment was just the first step of creating an upland prairie with our scraped backyard. While I would monitor the growth coming up in this area until the fall treatment would kill it again, that monitoring was to avoid anything going to seed and dispersing seeds into other areas. Some individual plants can disperse thousands of seeds. Many of the plants that tend to grow in these disturbed areas are plants that we don't want so it was imperative that we took care of them before they developed seeds. 

In our wetland area, we knew that completing treatments should allow any dormant native seed banks to hopefully start developing in areas they had been overshadowed by invasives. Eliminating those invasives would give us a better sense of what we might already have in our seed bank and what we could avoid seeding in the future. The more seed bank available, the better as seeding tends to be much more expensive than treating. In our wetland, we have noticed so much native growth already since starting treatments that our restoration partner thinks we will probably not need to seed at all in these areas. Our patience and bank account approve. Would we have the same luck in this potential upland prairie area?

In a word, no.

While we avoided some of the more annoying plants and weeds, the plants we did see were ones we would need to eliminate. While we hoped an initial kill would cure the land for prairie, we weren't ready yet. We would continue with another total kill in fall and then another in spring before we reassess and see if a fall seeding was in order. In most scenarios, it is preferred to seed in fall as the seeds need to be cold stratified. That means that they need to be exposed to a cold season before they can germinate and start their life as a plant. If you can throw seed on the ground and let the snow blanket them and protect them, seeds naturally make their way into the soil and will prepare themselves for coming to life in spring.

A beautiful prairie is coming. 

Soon.