The picture got cropped in the most unfortunate way, it was not meant to be a puzzle. Sorry, but now you have given me an idea. Let’s see what mischief I can set up with the cropping tool in this board. Just give me some time… 
Now every time I mess it up again I can claim it was on purpose.
Yes, you are correct.
When the foliage dries it dies back to the roots, becoming a fire risk. If fire does occur it reduces the standing dried stuff to ashes, releasing nutrients, and the plants re-sprout from their buried root systems. The resulting new growth is soft, green, and more nutritious for grazing animals to eat.
Strangely enough, your current weather is probably closer to our typical weather here in tallgrass prairie areas than it usually is.
I have some pictures I took a bit ago I’ve been meaning to send to you for comparison. Not sure when I’ll have an opportunity to get some additional ones. Our prairie is greener than yours right now, but that’s because we’ve had more rain this summer than you have. Which is also wrong, you should be having more rain than us, but the world is crazy these days.
Yes, yes it can. As someone from the UK you are no doubt aware that peat can act as a fuel. It’s just that swamps seldom dry out enough to catch fire.
Oh yes. Even if the ground is still wet, if the plants are tinder dry, such as in early spring, the top will burn.
Wakehurst prairie has been in the news this week - a couple of big features.
First off, The Guardian:
I noted back on July 21st that
I’m trying to offer a view of plant types/species present and highlight diversity between the regions (which, to my untrained eye, seems distinctly lacking for [Atlantic Coast vs South Central prairies], with both being dominated by the same yellow flowers). [which @Broomstick ID’d as Black-Eyed Susans]
There’s an interesting couple of paragraphs of partial explanation in the Guardian piece:
He [American gardening expert Larry Weaner] said: “It is a bit of a slow burn as developing living plant communities can take up to five years. We are now in year three … We were expecting to see a little bit more diversity appear this year, we think the very hot and dry conditions have actually delayed some germination.
“It’s not that these seeds won’t germinate but they are sitting dormant because the conditions have been very dry. That means the seed either hasn’t germinated or it has germinated and the seedlings are alive but they just haven’t had enough water to turn into a flower above ground…
…Pioneer plants, such as black-eyed Susans, have already come through, creating a blaze of yellow flowers across the landscape. In time, those plants will diminish and the grasses start to appear.
There was also a piece on the BBC website:
And Kew themselves (Wakehurst is the Sussex outpost of Kew) have been posting on the subject:
Finally, there is also a TV show (which I suspect is what has triggered this flurry of press activity), the fifth episode of Kew Gardens: A Year in Bloom, which will be on [UK] Channel 5 on Tuesday, August 23 (8pm UK) which will feature the prairie. I have no idea how accessible this will be outside of the UK.
j
Today I saw a spider, Araneus diadematus
A swamp fern, Thelipteris palustris
lots of yellow flags, yellow iris, or water flags, Iris pseudacorus, not yet in bloom:
and a tree I have not managed to identify yet. It may be a yew, genus Taxus, but I saw no fruit and the bark looks too smooth:
I’ve been meaning to get you updated pictures of the Hoosier prairie (it will happen, really!). We have a greater diversity of flowers and other plants so we don’t get fields dominated by just one flower, or just one grass.
Seeing prairie restorations around here (as opposed to our primordial prairie) Wakehurst does seem to be following the usual pattern. Less diversity, more expanses of similar flowers or plant. This will change over time.
As for harsh conditions - it is entirely normal for the wild prairie plant seeds to not all germinate at once (unlike domestic plants). It seems to be a natural reaction to a landscape with highly variable conditions. Plants that are common in dry years will be less so in wet years and vice versa. Some plants do better just after fire sweeps through, some do better when there has been no fire for awhile. This is part of what contributes to the diversity of the environment.
I’m still curious how Wakehurst will handle this - I assume the concept of a “controlled burn” or a “prescribed burn” is quite literally foreign to the UK. Mowing will help, I’m sure, but it won’t have the heat which is part of what stimulates some of the plants to germinate and causes the grass to sprout new shoots.
This article discusses controlled burns and shows some in progress.. When the term “controlled” is used it is quite appropriate. Note in the pictures there are mowed fire breaks and people standing by. In my area it’s not at all unusual to have some fire fighters on standby in case it starts to get out of control. And, as noted in the article, this is NOT done in drought years - although what a prairie considers drought and what most of the UK considers drought may be slightly different.
The results are alarming to those who haven’t seen it before. The land is black, with little mounds of grey ash here and there. It looks charred and lifeless. Then, over a week or two, new growth pushes up through the ash and life is restored. It’s almost magical.
I used to have a wonderful man-made microenvironment but I’ve lost the photos. It was man-made because it was along the south wall of the house I lived in. It was about 1 foot deep and bordered by the tarmacadam driveway on the south. The result was a mostly protected from usual Minnesota windy, cold winter.
Here in the U.S. we use “zones” to identify what might be winter-killed. I live in Zone 4. I was able to grow plants identified only as winter hardy to Zone 6. This means that the ground in that spot was usually 20 degrees F warmer than most of the surrounding area. One year, I even had clematis still blooming at the end of November, whereas we would normally not see blooms past mid-September. It was fun to play with that space.
This has been loaded onto Youtube.
Section on Wakehurst starts at 26.29 and goes pretty much immediately to the prairie (26.43). The report is from a year ago.
j
That is a magnificent structure! I want one like that too! Not to mention the beautiful plants!
Today I saw a big mushroom, more than 10" wide:
The underside is weird too:
Those look normal by comparison, wonder how poisonous they are:
Not going to try it out.
Interesting prairie news that I had missed. Because Mrs T is a Wakehurst member (to save on car parking fees) she has the pleasure of being emailed constantly about upcoming this, that and the other. And today… an email about a planned managed burn of the prairie (!). Really? Yeah, really. Once you know something is planned, it’s a lot easier to track it down.
This Kew press release gives a few brief details.
- A landscape that continues to evolve, with managed burning planned for next year [ie 2023]
…As viewers of A Year in Bloom will learn, the American Prairie has a dramatic future ahead, as the landscape will go through some of the natural stresses it would face in its home habitat, including a managed burn. With different plant species emerging at each stage, this stunning landscape will continue to evolve, transforming into a true spectacle at Wakehurst, and is one not to be missed.
So far as I am aware, it isn’t mentioned in the program. I sense an interview didn’t make the final edit.
j
Well, you don’t want a prairie burn, or field burn, to be a big public event because humans are idiots. Even without spectators, a planned burn can get out of hand. But I agree with doing the burn. A burn every so many years is how many prairie plants survived.
I don’t imagine for a second that they would do the burn when Wakehurst was open - it’s going to be hard enough to do the burn at all.
Just 'cos I’m like that, I checked out the rules for stubble burning - yeah, I know that’s not what they’re doing, but as we don’t have national rules for prairie burning, it seems like an appropriate place to start. And the stubble burning rules are pretty sensible:
Interesting clause:
You’re allowed to burn cereal straw and cereal stubble:
- …for education and research
But just a few of the major problems:
You must have a firebreak of at least 50m around any of the following that are within the area you’re burning:
- …buildings or scheduled monuments…
- …woodland or land managed as a nature reserve
Well, there’s a second world war secret underground communications bunker that I doubt is fifty meters away; and there is woodland so close that it almost overhangs the prairie, as well as trees growing within the prairie.
You must have a firebreak of at least 15m around any of the following that are within the area you’re burning:
- tree trunks
Ooops.
It’ll be interesting to see what they have to put in place and the hoops they have to jump through to get the burn done. Wonder if they need volunteer fire beaters?
j
Is the whole prairie not a nature reserve? So they can`t burn anything that is not at least 50m from itself? I must be reading this wrong.
I think I know who would like to volunteer 
Not that I’m aware of - it’s just an experimental garden, I think. But on the other hand, Wakehurst is almost all woodland. It’s going to be real difficult to do a burn safely.
j
It’s worth asking. When farmers burn their crops stubble here, they used to band together to do it. But that was back when farms were 40-80 acres in size, not 2000 acres. A few small farms have opened these up to interested volunteers. Kind of like a dude ranch, where those who are paying to stay there also get to participate in the work.
Nice images of the prairie. I had noticed that your Wakehurst prairie was more homogenous than the prairie by my and I’m glad they touch on that. We never get entire fields of black-eyed susans, for example, they much more spotty on our prairie because our is established and doesn’t have that much disturbed ground. You do get them along the walking paths, the parking area, and around the edges.
They did mention wildfire - I understand why people not familiar with something like controlled burns might be hesitate to use actual fire.
And then a couple posts later you have this:
I imagine there have been some behind-the-scenes details to work out for that. If they do go through with the managed burn be sure to get out to see the prairie as soon as possible afterward - it’s a moonscape that looks absolutely devastated but over the following days and weeks you’ll get to see the green regenerate.
Given how closely they’re working with Americans with experience of prairie management on this I think they’ll be able to put appropriate safeguards in place. At least you won’t have to deal with our typical winds - most days we have significantly higher windspeeds than you do.
Among other things - our folks announce burns ahead of time and issue traffic warnings so motorists know what the smoke is all about. Sometimes they close roads to avoid smoke-caused traffic hazards. Days have to be selected for temperature, humidity, recent rainfall, and windspeed (preferably a lack of windspeed). And, as I’ve noted, fire fighters are typically standing by, just in case they’re needed.
When we do controlled burns we don’t clear around the trees in these reserves - the flames flow past them, perhaps singing the bark. Done periodically the fires don’t burn as hot as the big blazes that take up time on the evening news. Live, healthy trees don’t catch fire, just the deadwood, and not even that sometimes because a regularly burned-over grassland doesn’t build up sufficient fuel to burn for an extended period. It’s when you suppress fire for a long period that you get enough fuel to burn that hot and become really destructive.
Certainly, the controlled burns are less disruptive than the actual wild fires we sometimes get naturally.
Great description of what happens, Broomstick.
Yep, @Broomstick, it certainly is.
I take your point about working with Americans with experience of prairie management, but it’s hard to see how the trees won’t limit what they are able to do. Here are some prairie update photos from this morning, this time going from west to east:
Pacific Northwest
That fir tree* isn’t behind the prairie, it’s right in the middle of it, with its lower branches brushing the prairie grass. I can only imagine they are going to have to mow an area around the tree to keep it safe during a burn. Other trees are also in the middle of the prairie, but they don’t have super low branches - this one looks to be the most problematic.
South Central
Atlantic Coast
(I realized just now that you can see the house in the background of this picture, Click to see the full image.)
OK, so PNW now just looks like long(ish) grass dying back; but the other two prairies now seem to have rather more diversity of flowers than they did three weeks ago, which I wasn’t expecting this late in the summer (or this early in the autumn, if you prefer).
Hey, I’ll be doing my level best to be a part of the process!
j
* - if I’d had my wits about me I would have checked out the label on the tree. This is an internationally important collection. We were looking at one today - I forget the name - which is in danger of extinction in the wild (as it were). More complications, eh.
Controlled burns will, as a general rule, burn with a low enough intensity and duration that mature, healthy trees can withstand them. They burn off all the dried, dead grass and herbaceous plants which, if done properly and regularly, does not result in setting trees on fire.
Of course, it is a bit more complicated than that and certain species of trees are more fire-resistant (or even fire dependent, like the Sequoia redwoods) than others. Trimming lower branches, mowing around trees, and even wetting down the trunks prior to a controlled burn are options. What, exactly, is done depends on a number of factors which I’m sure is why the Wakehurst folks are not rushing into their first burn.
A controlled burn is NOT wildfire like you see on the news. There may be little in the way of obvious, actual flame during the process. Not leaping walls of fire, not at all.