Burdock Brigade: The Human Burn (4/08/2012)

This morning's land management activity involved clearing last year’s dead growth from the landscaping around the center. The dead grasses and shoots are left over the winter to provide food for birds and small mammals and shelter for insects and their eggs.  The dead growth is cut down to allow sunlight to reach the new leaves and stems just beginning to emerge.

These plants and grasses are all burn-tolerant, and a controlled burn is the best way to clear the land in spring.  However, this area is too close to the building, and the staff at the center lacks the expertise for a burn like this.  Someday they would like to get to this point, but for the time being a burn will be simulated by volunteers with pruning shears.

In mid-March, the UEC hired a professional group to perform a controlled burn in the forested areas of Riverside Park.  Areas burned are grasslands that depend on regular fires to keep them healthy.  In the wild, these fires would happen by chance.  Burning prevents invasion by trees.  The roots of prairie grasses are underground and protected, so the dead growth is all that’s burned away.  At the time of my most recent walk through the burned area, new growth was already taking off.

We carted our clippings to the compost bins.  As it gets warmer, the Compost Crew will begin regularly tending and turning the hillside compost piles in order to maximize microorganism distribution for efficient soil production.

The UEC is conscious of using every opportunity and event to educate visitors about our impact on the environment.  Whenever the UEC land stewards lead Burdock Brigade volunteers, they make education a part of the manual labor.  They explain not only what we are going to do, but why we're doing it.  For example, the plants we were pruning this morning are part of a landscape designed to catch and naturally filter rainwater instead of sending the water through the sewer system.

Placard near the entrance to the Urban Ecology Center