First Workday

Today is the first day we've gotten our hands dirty restoring the prairie, and I think we made some good progress. A crew of five worked for about 3 hours cutting and removing brush from a small prairie remant, and now the sun shines on lots of Sideoats Grama that was slowly dying in the shade. Our crew ranged in age from 38 to 7, but everyone found a way to help out. In addition to cutting and removing brush, we also flagged the edge of the prairie where it borders the dirt road to indicate to the Penn State Farm Operations crews where we plan to work.

We first cut the brush with a chainsaw, then dragged the cuttings to a brush pile location which also had to be cleared of brush. The majority of the brush consisted of two species of shrub honeysuckle (Lonicrera morrowii and L. mackii) and Autumn Olive (Eleagnus umbellata). These are all non-native shrubs and they are the shrubs most responsible for the disappearance of the prairie at Box Hollow. Another invasive non-native shrub, a species of privet that I think is Ligustrum obtusifolium was also removed. We cut several native plants, too including a couple of small White Pines (Pinus strobus), Blackhaw Viburnum (Viburnum prunifolium), and Black Walnut (Juglans nigra). We left a few large Red Cedars (Juniperus virginiana) standing amid the prairie grasses. Black Walnut, Red Cedar, and Blackhaw Viburnum are among the native plants that are common on this site. Red Cedars are characteristic of xeric limestone prairies so we plan to leave at least some of them standing as long as they aren't so thick they shade out the grasses and forbs of the prairie.

The two photos posted today are a before and after shot of the prairie patch we cleared. The large shrubs in the center or the photo were Amur Honeysuckle (Lonicera mackii), which are easy to cut and remove. The taller shrubs in the background were Autumn Olive, which have much denser wood and many short branchlets, making them harder to remove. In the end, it all ended up in a brush pile, where it will provide habitat for the local cottontails and field mice.