Knife Edge Prairie – 2016

[To see photos and stories of this prairie in other years, go to the links on the main Knife Edge Prairie page.]

This year I girdled more of the trees around the edges of the Knife Edge Prairie – the wide, flat top of the bluff.   I also had to re-girdle many of the birches I had done a few years ago, because they had grown over the old cut.

Another project was cutting and treating small brush – mostly aspen suckers and Gray Dogwood – also in the flat part of the prairie.  We mow that area every spring, but it doesn’t ever seem to reduce the number of stems of these two species.  I’m experimenting with cutting and treating those stems in a fairly large area – since I can’t tell where the clones start and end.   I’m hoping that, over time, I’ll have some effect.

1/1/2016  Indian Grass Point on the left, the Knife Edge Point behind on the right

 

1/3/2016

 

1/3/2016

 

1/3/2016

 

1/29/2016

 

1/29/2016

 

2/22/2016

 

4/16/2016

 

4/21/2016  Blooming Pussytoes

 

4/22/2016  Newly mowed prairie

 

4/22/2016

 

4/25/2016

 

4/25/2016

 

4/25/2016

 

4/25/2016

 

5/31/2016

 

5/31/2016   Newly girdled Black Walnuts

 

6/2/2016  Re-girdled birches

 

6/22/2016  I discovered a large section of the west-facing hillside that was covered with Spiked Lobelia.

 

6/22/2016  Spiked Lobelia

 

6/22/2016  Prairie Larkspur on the sandy part of the point

 

7/16/2016  This is along the point, an area where we did a little clearing last year, and girdled the walnuts that were shading it.

 

9/2/2016  White Lettuce

 

9/5/2016

 

9/10/2016

 

9/16/2016  Aspen and Gray Dogwood sprouts

 

9/17/2016  Another spot with lots of Aspen and Gray Dogwood

 

9/16/2016  Aspen and Gray Dogwood has been treated in the foreground, but not in the back.

 

9/16/2016   Another spot after cutting Aspen and Gray Dogwood

 

9/18/2016   Area cleared of aspen and dogwood is on the left;  uncleared on the right.

 

9/17/2016  Another part of the prairie, with a lot less Aspen

 

9/20/2016

 

10/15/2016

 

10/15/2016

 

10/17/2016

 

12/28/2016

 

12/31/2016