March and April is spring wildfire season in Virginia, and this is also the time when foresters do prescribed burns to reduce fuel that could feed larger wildfires. Paula Whyman owns a 200-acre property in Rappahannock County, where she set out to do a prescribed burn on her property, to see if a small fire would help native plants grow. She writes about the experience, and others, in a book called “Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop.” RadioIQ spoke with her about what went right, and what proved difficult, as she set out to re-wild a piece of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
One of the most difficult challenges, said Whyman, is just how hard it is to kill invasive plants like autumn olive and stiltgrass.
“And that turned out to be about oh at least 80 percent of my time,” Whyman said. “And that was the source of many triumphs and many defeats!”
She described fighting off invasives as something like a game of whackamole, and she began to see that she couldn’t control them, so much as manage them. She realized she had to focus on keeping these plants back as much as possible, and make sure they don’t overrun the native plants that still exist on her property.
In researching how to do that, she discovered that fire is one tool that can help.
“Native plants in Virginia evolved in the presence of fire,” Whyman said. “They’re fire adapted. So to encourage the growth of native plants, often they’ll seed more, they’ll fruit more, they’ll grow faster, they’ll be more successful, if they’re periodically burned.”
So she contacted the Virginia Department of Forestry for advise. The agency can sometimes assist landowners with prescribed burns, if staffing is available. But the temperature, wind and humidity have to be right, so there’s a slim chance of a fire spreading. Professionals bring a water truck, in case things get out of hand.
“But on top of that, this is a mountaintop, where it’s almost always windy,” Whyman said. “And it’s a dry, highly erodible area. So it can be a very dangerous place to have a fire. I would never try to do this myself.”
Whyman pointed out, with a burn, there isn’t a guarantee that native plants will rebound. Some invasive plants also thrive after a fire, and it all depends on which seeds are under the ground.
Eventually, foresters conducted the burn on Whyman’s property. “And with this one field that I burned that did have a lot of natives in it, it came back gangbusters full of native plants. Tick trefoil, Carolina Rose, Goldenrod, Milkweed,” Whyman said.
Last year, she and a friend were walking through that field and spied an orchid. “And it was this tiny jewel of a plant called Lady’s Tresses, and it was so exciting to see that because I had not yet seen an orchid in the meadow at all,” Whyman said.
The fire may have even created a habitat for a bird that is under threat. “We saw an American Kestrel hunting over the meadow and that was a really big deal,” Whyman recalled. “The grassland bird initiative has now installed two kestrel nest boxes on the meadow, and I’m eager to see if we get nesting kestrels this spring.”
In her book, Whyman writes that it is a rare opportunity to be able to buy 200 acres of land. She’s heard from readers who want to know how they can do similar experiments with fewer resources.
She suggested paying attention to the plants that pop up in your yard, and learn everything about them, which ones are native, and which are invasive. For the natives, be curious about which animals visit them and research what helps them grow.
“If you have a window box in the city, think about planting one native flower and see what comes to it,” Whyman suggested. “If you’re interested in butterflies, plant something that will attract butterflies. If you’re interested in birds, plant something that makes berries or seeds.”
A window box garden in the city may seem like a small project, compared with an entire mountaintop, but Whyman said it can make an impact.
“And it can be very rewarding to know that you made that thing happen that if you hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t have happened,” Whyman said. “And I think that’s a very hopeful and inspiring act. And you don’t need any acreage to do something like that.”
Whyman will be speaking at two panels about nature at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville on March 20 and 21.
And a note that if you want to learn more about doing prescribed burning, you should contact the Virginia Department of Forestry to learn which laws and restrictions are in place in your area.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
