Restoring Bottomland Prairie: After the Burn, May 2016

Cutleaf Daisy (Engelmannia peristenia)
Native, perennial, volunteer.
Road Field Buffer

 Last year, I struggled for weeks to identify this beautiful yellow flower that volunteered in the Field Buffer along the driveway.  Once I learned what it was, and that it was out of its western-Kansas home range, I wasn't sure it would make it here.  Would it survive a Flint Hills burn and our wetter climate?   I told it, "If you come back next year, I'll remember you.  I'll know who you are next time.  I'll greet you by name!"   

What should I see this week but its sunny face!

So...
Hello, Cutleaf Daisy!  Welcome back!

Yellow Sweet Clover
(Melilotus officinalis)
Exotic biennial.  Volunteer.

I was not so happy to see something else in the Road Field Buffer--Yellow Sweet Clover, a native of Eurasia.   It out-competes other species in colonizing open ground, so it can be a problem in restorations.    

It looked as if it had formed a compact colony already--I thought I could spot-spray it without collateral damage.

But then I detected native plants interspersed with the clover.   

One of them was Canada Milkvetch!  

Canada Milkvetch (Astragalus canadensis)
Native perennial.  In Creek Field seed mix
but a volunteer here in the Road Field Buffer!
The Milkvetch appears between
Maximillian Sunflowers
and the Yellow Sweet Clover.

Canada Milkvetch was in our seedmix for the Creek Field, but not for the Road Field Buffer.  The seeds had to travel quite a way to put their roots down here.  
Yay, Canada Milkvetch!   You're a go-getter!  

A new Compass Plant
(Silphium laciniatum), native perennial,
volunteers in the Road Field Buffer,
 next o the Sweet Clover.  

Also interspersed with the clover was the new leaf of a Compass Plant.  

Nope!   We're not gonna spray.

There's too much good stuff mixed in with the clover.  We need the native plants to hold whatever ground we reclaim from the invasives.

The Milkvetch, Maximillian Sunflowers, and native
grasses can enjoy some extra space, now that
the Yellow Sweet Clover is gone.

But as it turned out, I didn't need to spray at all. This wet, wet spring had dampened the soil to the point that I could pull the Sweet Clover right out of the ground, root & all!

The roots of Sweet Clover
can be extensive!

Pretty soon I had liberated the native plants from their invasive neighbors.


And then, as a special treat,
I found a second Cutleaf Daisy!

A second Cutleaf Daisy blooms in the Field Buffer,
quite a distance west of the first.