Why do we do this

Why we are doing this

                We want more organisms in ponds and parries that are native because we want to attract native animals. Also we want the invasive organisms out so the ponds and parries are all native. We want all native so we burn the invasive. The organisms like sweet clover and purple cone flower are invasive. The invasive plants are crowding out the native plants. Other invasive plants like the big blue stem are so tall that the other plants can’t get sunlight. We need to clean the parries.

The Karter Butterfly (pictured at the right corner) is a very beautiful butterfly but they are not always around because we keep cutting up their food (pictured at the left corner). We are making these poor butterflies no longer exstist. Let's try and keep the Karter's some of there food. The Karter Butterflie's love to live in praries. The praries are usually where there food is grown. The Karter Buttflies food is called Lupine. They are a beautiful blue and black shade.Lets try to make a difference.

Sweet clover

Sweet Clover

Blooming period

-Blooms in spring -

Physical Characteristics  

-Latin name is mellitus Alba

-grow to approximately 6 ½ ft. (2 m) in heigh

-white flower 

-Clover-like leaves

What it Attracts

-the sweet clover attracts butterflies and other beneficial bugs.

Switchgrass

Switch grass is a warm season grass with open, lacy sprays with small seeds. It blooms August-September. It has Purple Stigmas at flowering time. Switchgrass is a 3-6 foot loose sod former with a large, open, finely textured, reddish-purple seedhead. Fall color is pale yellow. Bright green leaves occur up and down the stem turning bright yellow in fall. Switchgrass is a perennial flower. Grows in large clumps, with many persistent, curly leaves. Switchgrass is one of the dominant species of the tallgrass prairie, but also grows along roadsides where moisture is present. The rich, yellow-colored clumps last throughout the winter.

Beavers

When sites are available, beavers burrow in the banks of rivers and lakes they also transform less suitable habitats by building dams. Gnawing trees with their strong teeth and powerful jaws, they create massive log, branch, and mud structures to block streams and turn fields and forests into the large ponds that beavers love. The Dome like beaver homes, called lodges, are also constructed of branches and mud. They are often located in the middle of ponds and can only be reached by underwater entrances. Beavers are among the largest of rodents. They are herbivores and prefer to eat leaves, bark, twigs, roots, and aquatic plants. These large rodents move with an ungainly waddle on land but are graceful in the water, where they use their large, webbed rear feet like swimming fins, and their paddle-shaped tails like rudders. These attributes allow beavers to swim at speeds up to five miles an hour. They can remain underwater for 15 minutes without surfacing, and have a set of transparent eyelids that function much like goggles. Their fur is naturally oily and waterproof. These animals are active all winter, swimming and foraging in their ponds even when a layer of ice covers the surface.

BIG BLUE STEM

   The Big Blue stem is a prarie grass and its very easy to tell from all of the other grass ,because it has a certain tone of blue and the flowers on the top of it is the shape of a turkeys foot. Your yard is most likley to have big bluestem in it because at one point it probably was a prarie. When a prarie is filled with the Big Bluestem it is very cool because it looks almost purple. There are grass hoppers that will jump on it and mate and same with Cattails. This is a very good habitat for small animals like, field mice, woodchucks ( if its near water),maybe deer, fox, and ground hogs.We all have to help them out so they can make it to more places around the world.

The New England Aster

The New England Aster is about a foot high and and about 3cm wide. We have some in our prairie at Chatfield School in Michigan. It is purple.  The bloom period is in June and October .This flower can be used for medication. It came from the Europeans to the United States, it is not in many praries. The insect that is attracted to the New England Aster is a Bee.  The New England Aster can be very useful and is very beautiful.