Irenic Road

Spring Happened

Well, spring happened, and I’ve spent a good deal of time outside. Though I look forward to this time of year, it hasn’t been all frolicking in prairie. This year I had to move 15-20 plants out of raised beds in the garden to my experimental area (I hesitate to call it a prairie because it’s so small and low in diversity). I wish I’d taken photos of of the roots on these things– the compass plants were especially large. But then they are 4 years old and should’ve been moved 2 years ago. It’s been a learning experience. I’ve really gotten a feel for how plants grow at different paces and even some of the good ones quickly get out of control. For instance, the ironweed sent stolons all over the beds, popping up shoots every few inches.

I’ve also spent some time enjoying the outdoors, but getting all the grunt work done has been very satisfying. On Earth Day I volunteered to cut down Eurasian honeysuckle at Brown’s Woods, a 480 acre forest preserve in West Des Moines. Honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.) is an invasive shrub that takes over woodlands. A burly guy named Mike showed up with an axe, which was not the sort of thing the county conservation board would encourage. We formed a two-person team: he chopped, I sprayed the stumps with brush killer. I’d say we killed around 100 honeysuckle bushes. Too bad there were thousands more… 480 acres is a lot of ground to cover.

I hope to actually blog a bit in the coming weeks, now that my outdoor activities are slowing down. I just wanted to give an idea of what I’ve been doing lately.