[Magdalen] Quiet

[Mahoney, W. Michael]

On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 12:55 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

> A friend of mine who lives in Madison, WI has a neighbor who
> has "let his property go au naturel."  This means the whole  property
> went over to weeds.  There is a period of about 3 years for the
> natural look with the native prairie plants, and that's with some
> help by seeding prairie mixtures from the UW Arboretum.  That
> three years is very difficult because all the surrounding neighbors
> go incendiary.  After it all gets into native prairie, it is  rather
> attractive.
>

Prairies are kind of hard to have where they do not want to be.
Hereabouts, an untended prairie would eventually revert to a - - I suppose
- - Virginia hardwoods forest in a century or so.  But it would first turn
into a god-awful mess of Autumn Olive, multiflora rosa, quack grass, briar,
etc.  Frequent mowing and burning can delay the inevitable, or conversion
to other use.

Mike M.