...well, most of it anyway. Every spring I do "prescribed burns" in my yard in lieu of mowing. Wildflowers are not only unaffected, but often assisted by this process. I've never burned a garden area before though, so I got nervous and prevented the fire from spreading to certain areas containing hardscape bushes. (I always pre-water perimeters before I get going, so I watered down the spots I wanted spared ahead of the fire in progress.)
This is last summer, it's a weedy but certainly lush area...
....and you can pick out most of the perennials in the crowd, like the yellow leaves of 'Sweet Kate' widows tears.
Now all I see are the charred remains of plants that were coming up already, much to my dismay....
...scorched right down to the dirt!
At first everything looked dead, both the burned and spared alike...
....many dug-out spots where animals were taking advantage of the summer cover...
...so I make "amends"! Well-composted manure is spread to fill in (not that "well-composted" is a requirement or something, but it helps and this had a lot of cow poo in it which is "hotter" and has more nitrogen due to the way cows digest as opposed to horses...but I digress.)
As I fill in, I discover that the grass is recovering nicely of course! Hrumpf!
This is just a couple weeks after the burning and daylilies appear un-phased...
....some mulch will surely help too. I ran out before covering the un-burned spots, but I was just attending to the most needy areas (or "putting out fires", as it were :)
Despite rain being forecast frequently, this has been a super dry spring so I water the garden well...
....and hope for the best! Now I get to find out which of my plants are "fire-proof".
8 comments:
Wow, there is nothing as green and lush as new growth after a burn!
We need to burn again here too, it's been awhile.
Here we have to call the volunteer fire dept. and let them do a controlled burn. I love how the meadow looks about 6 weeks later though.
v.
Wow, the fire department?! Heh, I think I'd enjoy a few hunky firemen wandering around my yard...y'know? ;-)
I did the same burning thing and it worked out just fine. The snow predicted here for today though.....grrrr!
Glad to hear that! I had some snow too, luckily just a dusting that melted this morning.
Lisa, that is so cool. I love prescribed burns. It's mostly natives that respond to burns, esp. prairie plants, but it will be cool to know what comes back for you. What did you use as fire breaks? Wet soil?
So far all my plants have come back, I'm really jazzed! I only watered the ground in a perimeter to contain the fire, which works best if it's dead still-NO wind. Plus I only light one small area at a time and follow the fire along, wetting the burned areas down as it goes along.
Wow, I didn't know you did this. I think I'd get arrested starting a fire like this in California, so I'll enjoy it in your blog. The Native Americans burned large swaths of land, and that apparently worked for them. A lot of Calif. plants are fire-adapted of course.
Yea, seems like they have enough issues with fire in California that this would be frowned upon. That's a shame, because prescribed burns help prevent wildfires... too populated in many areas I suppose. I need to post a new image of this garden because the burn seemed to cause intense new growth!
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