Crow’s Nest: The meadows have it!

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager

This is a spectacular time of year to see our meadows. The warm-season grasses such as Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans, foreground lower left, and background, below) are a rich orange color that goes well with the goldenrod, also at peak bloom right now. But the warm-season grasses will look great long into winter after the short-lived blooms of goldenrod are gone.

A Joe Pye weed frames the meadow view from Piersol Road (below). This meadow is managed by annual mowing in late winter (otherwise it would fill with woody plants, some of them invasive) and occasionally with prescribed fire, which more closely mimics a natural process than mowing.