Why Celebrate the New Year with a Bonfire?

Marty Maneck on the bagpipes leads the procession through the woods. 
This celebration is partly tradition and partly very new.

Is it: To Celebrate the Return of the Sun – and Life?

Is it: To feel humble as we face the overwhelming power of fire and climate as forces of nature?

It is: Just an excuse to have a relaxing and fun experience with fellow stewards, friends, and neighbors?

Yes, yes, for all these reasons. But there are more.

Let's start with the unexpected experience of the fire itself. People have stood in awe of that power for thousands of years. Click here for an example (a pale example - since you aren't in its real presence) but a taste:

Then let's list the five easiest reasons:

1. Truly to celebrate the fact that, after the solstice, daylight hours will increase for 182 days in a row. Longer, lighter days feel like a blessing. It starts slow on Dec. 21st. But by January 1, daylight is getting longer by about one minute each day. 

2. To relax, to escape the malls and shopping and "tiz the season" responsibilities. To see friends and be peaceful during a crowded season.

3. To celebrate woods, trees, wild animals, and the planet. To be conscious and appreciative of it all.

4. To celebrate the work of the Somme forest preserve stewards for another year’s generous work. To thank the neighbors and the public generally  – for patience and support.

5. To dispose of a huge amount of invasive brush – invasive trees and shrubs – cut and piled to restore health to the ecosystem – and to teach people why burning brush and replanting natural diverse seeds are good to do. The brush we slay is often so thick that to leave it heaped everywhere would just stress the ecosystem in yet another way. But to thin trees, pile and burn a brush pile, and plant rare local seeds is a miracle of re-creation. It's wonderful that people should learn about this and support it. 

You’ll notice that there’s no strictly “religious” reason above. This festivity is not exactly “faith-based” although it is “faith friendly.” Somme Woods Forest Preserve is owned by the people of Cook County, Illinois and is situated in the Village of Northbrook. Somme Woods is appreciated by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Bahais, people of other faiths, and folks who aren't interested in religion. To the ancient Druids and Celts, solstice bonfires may have been directly religious. In some current religions, 'festivals of lights' and 'good will' are said to have historic connections with the general time of the solstice. 

Both the solstice and New Year today mark a time of the year that's fundamentally science. They are an opportunity to explain to curious kids what the sun does and how the tilt of the Earth’s axis works. Our solstice is a day when religion and science can relax together.

Stewards cutting brush often say, “Let there be light.” There’s joking and interesting discussion throughout the year as the Somme Woods volunteers slay invasives to let in the sun. One day a boy said to his dad, “Oh, I get it. You need the ‘photo’ to have the ‘synthesis’.” 

Death by shade is the sad fate of many woods. Stewards work to bring biodiversity back.

There’s a parallel between “ecosystem death by shade" and shortening December days. But getting up and coming home in the dark is only temporary. Ecosystem death can be permanent.

The oak woods and prairies of the American Midwest are fire-dependent natural communities. Thousands of species are declining and going locally extinct because, in the absence of controlled burns, invasive trees and shrubs shade out the understory. Ecosystem extinction is like what would happen if after 182 days of darkening, the sun just kept shutting down. Ecosystem recovery after brush clearing is like spring. At the bonfire, we celebrate "the return of the sun" in two senses.

Thriving natural woodlands need stewardship and community support.

For five million years, the lightning-lit fires that swept the prairies and oak woodlands followed rhythms somewhat like the seasons. Dry vegetation would burn off, grow back, and burn again. When the “Native Americans” arrived here from Asia, following the retreat of our most recent glacier, those new Americans started burning the landscape, as people have done over much of the temperate world. Thus our major ecosystems evolved with fire for millions of years (and here, as tweaked by people, for the last few millennia). Without fire we lose the species, resources, and heritage of that long evolution. Loss of biodiversity is a tragedy on so many levels. Restoration reverses that loss. 

Somme Woods has celebrated this season with a bonfire annually since 1999. It started small. These days hundreds of neighbors show up. It's not advertised beyond some Facebook posts (not put up by us) and a banner by the entrance. People come mostly by word of mouth. They relax about it. 

After the procession and bagpiper, the pile is lit. People study it as a looming, dramatic curiosity. The initial billowing white "smoke" is mostly evaporating water. Over five or ten minutes the conflagration grows, and people move back, and then farther back. Every year we feel awe for its power. When the flames are going up thirty feet or more, they make a roar and a wind that shakes the nearby trees. It becomes a power of nature - like an earthquake, lightning, hail, or a tornado. It humbles us. Going below the surface in religion or science can humble us. Feelings of peace and good will may be facilitated by that humbling power.

After the fire peaks, generous volunteers serve home-made spiced cider, hot chocolate, and baked morsels. We talk and think. Some sing or play music. 

Kids line up to master the art of climbing a tricky tree - and then perform.

Parents let kids play. In these  woods creative youngsters consistently discover a giant playground. Every year in different ways they mine the opportunities. Big old downed trees look festive as kids in their bright colors drape themselves over every limb. They make snow sculptures or turn over logs to check for creepy crawlies. Streams and ponds lure them. Parents supervise but treat them with holiday indulgence.

As the fire dies down, the drama draws to a natural close. People move closer to the flickering embers, especially if the day is cold. We and the ecosystem are ready for another year.

Acknowledgements

Photo credits: Carol Freeman, Lisa Culp, and Tina Onderdonk

A different blog on this event, written mostly for stewards, is at: http://woodsandprairie.blogspot.com/2015/12/solstice-bonfire.html

Eager Embryos for the New Year

Some of us stewards have been raking leaves in the forest. Are we crazy? 

Raking forest leaves into piles and onto tarps? Really?

Then tossing tarp-fulls on to a bonfire? What gives? 

In fact, we are restoring nature, guided by actual scientific experiment. Previously, we found that our rare, precious seed produced few or no seedlings when we broadcast it on dense woodland leaves. See photo below from 2015.

We had sowed patches of seed in circular plots a) where leaves had been raked away and b) in similar unraked plots. Only the raked plots produced bountiful seedlings, as shown here, during the second spring, following a burn. The unrated circular plots didn't make helpful photos. They were just expanses of thick dead leaves.

For more on this experiment, see Endnote 1. 

Where we cut away the dense buckthorn, there is little flora left to recover. So, as suggested by the experiment, we generally broadcast our seed after a burn removes the leaf litter. The seed then works its way into that blackened, bare ground – and seedlings thrive. But we didn’t manage to have a prescribed burn this fall. No good burn weather last fall. Perhaps next spring?  But some species need to be in the ground all winter. So, experimentally, we rake leaves off some areas for seeding. 

 

Nine bags of seed for “MW” or “mesic woods” (mesic meaning in between “wet” and “dry” woods). We gather a dozen different mixes, with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of seed, if we were to buy it. But the local ecotype is not available commercially. In other words, this rare seed is invaluable. We don't want to waste it.

The handfuls of seeds that we carefully broadcast are the future of the ecosystem that will support butterflies, birds, salamanders, beetles, coyotes, and the whole family. 

What to do with those leaves we rake off? We sometimes make piles. But that’s not the preference in the areas that have diverse spring flora. The piles are thick enough to kill much of the existing flora that comes up underneath. (It’s the summer and fall flora that’s dramatically killed off by the excess shade.)

Although it’s more work, we sometimes toss tarp-fulls of leaves over a brush bonfire. Then we’re rid of them. They burn more like dry leaves would burn in a controlled fire, more completely and hotter. Such burning is very different from the smoking piles of leaves that drew public outcry years ago by people sensitive to smoke. This is different smoke, and convection tends to loft it happily out over Lake Michigan. 

So, raking means “Happy New Year” to the literally millions of rare embryos of the more than 200 plant species that we have gathered, prepped for planting, sorted into wetness-and-shade-level mixes, and now raked for and broadcast.

We look forward to celebrating with them their bounteous futures in years to come.

Spring: In a restored area, blooming geranium, robin plantain, yellow stargrass, and bastard toadflax share space with species that bloomed earlier, like wood betony, and which will bloom later, including cream vetchling or “wood pea.” 

In early summer this restored open woodland features blooming wild columbine, spiderwort, and beardtongue. All these and many others had been killed off by the buckthorn shade and were seeded back in.

Later in the summer, Joe-Pye-weed and woodland sunflower start to overtop the starry campion, wild coffee, and woodland brome, which bloomed earlier. 

Endnotes

Endnote 1

A caveat: leaf raking seems to be most needed in places where dense oaks leaves cover the ground. There are places in the woods where leaves blow into piles or, for whatever reason, bare soil is visible. In such places, we just scatter seed on whatever bare ground there is.

But in the photo, six of the raked circular plots are obvious here in the second year of this experiment – because of the diverse vegetation emerging. This vegetation did not emerge in the unraked circles. Indeed, the sparse emerging vegetation outside the raked plots now is almost exclusively young maple trees. Oddly, lots of maples emerged in the un-raked patches, but not in the raked patches. Perhaps the maples couldn’t compete with the restored turf from the diverse seed mix? Maple invasion is a major degradation threat in the oak woodland.

How did the grasses, sedges and wildflowers of the oak woods reproduce before we were here to rake leaves? Perhaps only after burns? Or perhaps just very slowly. We notice that in scattered small patches the ground is bare of leaves because of animal disturbance, or wind, or whatever. Perhaps most seedlings once germinated in those patches. 

Another possibility is suggested by our experience with savanna and prairie seeding, which is much different than our woods experience. While we’d prefer to seed on the year of a burn, there’s actually seedling-establishment potential in savannas and prairies during non-burn years because the structure of the previous year’s vegetation prevents the build-up of a thick mat of fallen leaves. Unlike tree leaves, much prairie vegetation is more vertical than flat. Perhaps as the years progress and diverse vegetation is restored, seeds will do a lot better in the better-vegetated woodlands without our help. 

Thanks
for photos to Eriko Kojima and Stephen Packard

Thanks
for hard work and high spirits - to scores of Somme weekend stewards
(P.S. You're invited to join in. See our schedule at Somme calendar.

Giving Rare Seeds a Good Start

More Than Perhaps You Wanted To Know

But Then, Perhaps Less Than You Need To Know

If You Want To Competently Restore An Ecosystem

(This is a draft – being edited – comments appreciated.)

Rarely Asked Questions 

(and Possible Answers, not pretending to be the last word – in this evolving discipline of the restoration of quality plant communities)

RAQ1: Why is it important to plant seeds in the right place? 

PA: Some people say we wrongly “play God” in deciding which seeds to plant where. And in theory, the most natural method would be to plant all species everywhere – and let God or nature decide which would prevail. But our most important seeds are rare – and harvesting rare genotypes from the wild, as we do, diminishes the place they’re taken from. Take too much too often – and we do damage. This is especially true of the seeds of now-rare, formerly dominant conservative species. 

So, we don’t want to waste them. Also, the seeds of wetland plants won’t propagate on dry ground, and although middle-moisture seeds might survive for a while in somewhat drier and somewhat wetter habitats, they’d be replaced by more fit species in time. The same could be said for species of sun or shade. Thus, if our goal is to conserve rare biodiversity, we can’t ethically waste.

Reassuring note: This account – drawn mostly from experience at Somme Prairie Grove – won’t concern itself with the complexities of less common soils like sand, clay-pans, etc. but will stick with prairies, savannas, and woodlands rising from the typical black soil of the tallgrass region. Also, this post is a “draft” prepared for a North Branch Restoration Project training exercise for stewards and Seeds Workday Leaders. We’ll learn enough through feedback to update these ideas after the exercise?

RAQ 2: Should we plant the same species in bare ground (where brush was cut) … compared to a grazed out old field that just needs more diversity?

PA: This is an important question, worth being aware of, but the answer is complicated. Many of the most important species won’t do well on bare ground, so we save them for “turf” mixes. But detail on this tangled question is relegated to Endnote 1.

RAQ 3: How do I recognize where I should stop broadcasting the prairie seed mix and start doling out savanna seeds?

PA: The first answer is that you’ll want to overlap those mixes a bit – as we’re just not that smart as to know for sure, and, indeed, the species mix naturally. 

The second answer is that it depends on how far apart and how big the trees are in your savanna. A rule of thumb: if full sun shines on a piece of ground for two thirds of the day or more, plant prairie seeds. But there’s much more on this, below. 

RAQ 4, and last: In restoring an oak woodland, should all the invading shade be removed before I plant my first seeds, or should the process be staged? 

PA: Our knowledge of how to restore biodiverse woodlands is even more primitive than with prairies and savannas. Some approaches lead to an understory of briars, poison ivy, and such rank vegetation that seems to head in the opposite direction from quality. With a lot of effort, it seems to work well to open the canopy enough for oak reproduction, plant diverse species for that level of sunlight, and let ecological processes take it from there. But other approaches may also show promise. (More on this in Endnote .) 

Some Visuals That Might Help

Many restoration principles can be expressed simply, but recognizing how to apply them on the ground in a specific place is the real challenge. Don’t expect to be perfect at it. In fact, just go ahead and assume that you won’t be right all the time and in every detail. But thinking about the principles ought to help. And field exercises help the most. The visuals below were designed to help prepare for field exercises. 

GRAPHIC SHOWING WRONG APPROACH

The graphic above seems to say: “Put the Prairie Mix in the prairie and the Savanna Mix in the savanna.” No, sorry, that’s not the way.  

Probably the seed mixes shouldn’t be called “Prairie,” “Savanna,” and “Woods.” 

Probably they should be called something like “Full Sun,” Part Sun,” and "Dappled Shade.” 

For more on this unfortunate terminology, see Endnote 3.

LESS WRONG, BUT STILL WEAK

This graphic gets us closer to reality. Most open savanna should be seeded with the “Prairie” mix. But immediately under and around and especially to the north of isolated large trees (considering how the sun’s rays slant at our latitude), plant the “Intermediate” mix. In the darkest parts of the savanna, blend in some “Woods” mix. 

There is no “maple forest mix” on this map, because the North Branch had little of the maple/basswood or maple/beech forest (and those fine natural communities are a good deal less threatened than oak communities, so there’s been less research as to restoration techniques or conservation goals or priorities). The restoration we’re considering in this exercise is for oak woodland and oak forest, which have much brighter understories than a maple forest. 

Notice, above, that the seed mixes to be planted in a savanna may be mostly the Open (“prairie”) mixes, and a woodland may have open meadows and many areas (depending on the spacing of the trees) for the “Intermediate” mix. In fact it is in these areas that the bur and white oaks reproduce. 

BEST GRAPHIC, FOR NOW

This final graphic is “as good as we’ll get” in this post – and perhaps a “good enough” approach for this simple site. It adds wetnessto shadein our decision-making. On the North Branch we deal with few areas of “dry” soils or even “dry-mesic” soils, so we’ll focus here on “mesic” and “wet-mesic” soils. 

(Note on the ugly word “mesic.” It’s just fancy jargon for “medium” moisture. That is, it’s half way between dry and wet. I apologize for it. But it’s so widely used in conservation, that we may be stuck with it. See Endnote 3, in the unlikely event that you want to think more about jargon considerations.)

Thus we’ll decide where to plant the six different seed mixes that we need here:

MP: Mesic Prairie  

MI: Mesic Intermediate

MW: Mesic Woods  

and

WMP: Wet-Mesic Prairie 

WMI: Wet-Mesic Intermediate  

WMW: Wet-Mesic Woods  

How do we define our shadiness term “Intermediate” here? It’s an area that sometimes has full sun but is shady 40 to 60 percent of the time – whether because one big tree puts it in full shadow for part of the day, or because the overall tree canopy has enough holes in it that any given piece of ground gets sun for 40 to 60 percent of the day. 

The graphic may seem complicated, but on the ground it’s not so bad. You’ll find it quickly becomes second nature to check where you are in relation to trees: a) far from, b) near, and c) under. Recognizing whether you’re in mesic or wet-mesic or wet soils is trickier. You can often tell from the existing vegetation. (See Endnote 4.) For example, white oaks indicate “mesic” and swamp white oaks indicate “wet-mesic” or “wet”. But you can also often tell (especially as you’ve become more familiar with your site) because on the day you’re seeding, the mesic areas will be light brown and the wet-mesic will be dark and damp. 

Also, a person who’s studying this insanely closely may notice that the “LESS WRONG” graphic treats some areas differently from the “BEST FOR NOW” graphic, as to whether an area deserves “Prairie,” “Intermediate,” or “Woods” seed.  

One Last Point 

(Oh! Please, no! Not more!)

Well, just a hint of one last consideration. When broadcasting seed, consider the species already growing there – unless it’s bare ground where brush was just cut.  If an area is dense with tall goldenrod and briars, don’t invest too much rare seed there yet. 

The highest-quality seed mixes should be broadcast into thin old-field turf (made, for example, of bluegrass, daisy, carrot, and early or gray goldenrod). This approach has been proven by long experience on the North Branch, Poplar Creek, Spring Creek, Flint Creek, and Orland preserves. More on this in Endnote 1. 

What’s your experience?

If you do this work, please keep careful records and share what you learn.

Endnotes

Endnote 1

Inter-seeding deserves more than an endnote, but this most-important and best way to plant diverse conservative seedat least deserves a quick summary here. 

For mesic prairie area, especially receptive is a diverse turf of “old field” species like Canada bluegrass, poverty oats, timothy, wild carrot, and ox-eye daisy. Even if you don’t know these species, you can probably recognize this kind of area as one where you can see through the plants down to soil all summer long. If the shade is too dark, prairie seedlings will die.  

In sandy soil at Nachusa, the stewards recommend planting all the species with the first seeding, and that seems to work there. At Fermilab, Dr. Betz recommended starting out with “first wave” species like big bluestem, Indian grass, and prairie dock – adding conservatives later. Most people today don’t recommend that approach.

At Somme we have mostly used two sets of mixes, one for bare ground where brush was recently cleared (although we often sow no seeds the first year to give us time to spray out invasive seedlings and re-sprouts). Sometimes in such situations we sow non-aggressive grasses that first year, to hold the soil and allow us still to spray broad-leaf herbicides). 

The second major mix is for higher-quality established turf. In an “old field” of daisies, bluegrass, poverty oats, and even smooth brome, we get good results from broadcasting the very “highest conservatives” including prairie clover, dropseed, Leiberg’s panic grass, shooting star, the phloxes, and everything good. Over the years, they out-complete and replace the weeds. (However, if the bluegrass or brome is so dense that it heavily shades the ground by summer, it is necessary to burn it for a year or a few before planting.)

In bare-ground woodlands, we hold back on such species as hepatica, betony, shooting star, and rue anemone until there’s a turf to hold them. We have less experience with woodlands.

In rank areas of tall goldenrod, sawtooth sunflower, Canada thistle, etc. we suspect there’s an appropriate mix to break promote diversity, but we’ve done little careful research on alternatives. In such areas, leadplant, dropseed, prairie dock, and Culver’s root (among many others) succeed well.  

Endnote 2

Fallen tree leaves act differently from the previous year’s old-field vegetation. We have found that few seedlings of most species can make it up through dense woodland leaf litter. So we try to plant such areas only after the leaves have been burned off. In some years, wind blows leaves into piles and leaves some areas bare, so we then seed those bare areas. 

Diverse woodland understories seem readily established in burned areas if sufficient seed can be broadcast. Mesic species that do especially well for us (and seem especially compatible with other conservatives) in the early years include elm-leaved goldenrod, golden Alexanders, nodding fescue, starry campion, and wide-leaved panic grass. Prime wet-mesic species include zigzag goldenrod, great blue lobelia, Virginia rye, and many sedges. Indeed, sedge species seem to foster diversity in woods from dry to wet. Since our seed teams can’t always identify all the sedges, we ask that they just gather what they find and label the bag with the habitat (wet prairie, dry open woods, etc.).  

Endnote 3

Conservation needs public support. Jargon alienates people. 

I tried to get the annoying word “mesic” out of this summary. Why not just speak English and say “medium”?! But in this case, that leads to the seed mix called “Medium Intermediate” – which is ridiculous. 

If anyone thinks it’s worth the challenge of trying to clarify terminology, I suggest possible alternate names:

For wetness: Wet, Wettish, Medium moist, Dryish, Dry.

For canopy cover: Full Sun, Half Sun, Dappled Shade, Deep Shade (or Full Shade).

Or perhaps: Full Sun, Part Sun, Light Shade, Full Shade.

(Note: Deep Shade or Full Shade would apply to maple forest. On the North Branch, we don’t have such a mix.)

It’s good for all stewards to know what “mesic” and “wet-mesic” means, so  you can read the technical literature. But we also need language to use with the general public and new volunteers.

Endnote 4

Since the quality species you’re seeding are likely not already present, you often you have to judge the wetness of an area by the weeds or invaders. 

Indicator plants for seeding mesic prairie:

Ox-eye daisy

Wild carrot

Canada bluegrass

Early goldenrod

Indicator plants for seeding wet-mesic prairie:

New England aster

Sneezeweed

Sawtooth sunflower (but don’t plant if it’s too dense)

Redtop

Indicator plants for seeding wet prairie:

Swamp milkweed

Sneezeweed

Blue vervain

In Intermediateareas, there’s rarely any vegetation beside brush. Check the Intermediate seed mix lists to find possible indicator species, if any are present. 

In woodlands, often the spring ephemeral species survive.

Indicator plants for seeding mesic woods:

Prairie trillium

Cut-leaved toothwort

Indicator plants for seeding wet-mesic woods:

Swamp buttercup

Fringed loosestrife

Mad-dog skullcap

Indicator plants for seeding wet woods:

Cardinal flower

Swamp buttercup