Replacing Grass with Grass

Some of the work we do in the meadow is less than glamorous.

Lately we've been working to eradicate Bermuda grass—an invasive plant from the Eastern Hemisphere with an aggressive root system. According to Wikipedia, Bermuda grass is so called because it is incredibly invasive there, and is probably the point from which it entered North America. Bermuda grass spreads quickly in sunny areas, forming a dense mat that chokes out existing plants and prevents the growth of anything else. As far as I know, Bermuda grass does not provide food or habitat for any native Tennessee wildlife.

To eradicate the grass, you have to make sure to remove all the roots, and pile them on top of concrete or something so they'll dry out. If even a tiny piece remains in the ground, the grass can soon reestablish itself. The roots run deep into the clay, and are super brittle. Trying to kill it—without poisons, of course—is a lot of hot, tedious, unrewarding, cussing-under-your-breath work.

Our strategy is to get as much of the root system as we can, then pile a lot of mulch on top of the area we just weeded. A week later we will do another sweep. The loose mulch makes it easier to pull up the new growth from the inevitable roots we accidentally left behind.

Besides doing our best to kill grass, we are also planting grass.

Brian Campbell, horticulturist at the Knoxville Botanical Gardens and Arboretum, and champion of the Butterfly Conservation Meadow, donated a couple flats of native grasses and other plants grown from seeds collected at Cades Cove. The flats consist of tiny plugs of potting soil with baby sprouted grasses sticking out the top. More than one person has remarked they are oddly adorable. Please see photo below.

Among the species we have planted in the meadow are little bluestem and big bluestem, bunch-style prairie grasses that have grown in Cades Cove since prehistoric times. This prairie grass was mostly displaced by fescue and other livestock forage grasses planted by European settlers. Park employees are now working to reestablish the native grassland.

Bluestem grasses provide food and habitat for small animals and birds including quail. Could it be possible to attract quail to Parkridge?

We are planting these grasses into the clay in the center of the lot where the house burned. Hopefully they'll make it. Grow little grass plugs, grow.

Snakes and the City

One of our first wildlife encounters in the meadow was with this small brown snake, lying stiff and cold--but alive--under a  pile of boards. This was in February, so we were surprised to see her (or him.)

Now we see a brown snake or two almost every day, especially when pulling out old raised beds. They are usually lying alone or in pairs, in dark, cool places, like under stones and rotting timbers. They really are called "brown snakes," the genus name is Storeria.  They eat worms and slugs, and are often eaten themselves by birds such as Towhees. (These striking orange, black, and white birds are regularly spotted in the Parkridge Butterfly Meadow.)

The shy, harmless brown snakes remain tiny, not much bigger than an earthworm, and are probably the most common snakes in Knoxville because they have adapted so well to urban and suburban environments. One of my Woodbine neighbors likes to see them in her garden; she takes their presence as a sign of a healthy habitat.

Brown snakes are perfect for the budding herpetologist learning how to identify, catch, and gently handle reptiles before releasing them back into the "wild." They have small heads and tiny mouths, too small to deliver a painful bite, and rows of dark spots down their backs. They will release a terrible odor if frightened, and, like all reptiles, they may carry salmonella bacteria, so it is important to have young herpetologists wash their hands afterwards.

My six-year-old daughter especially loves brown snakes, and seems to feel a lot of sympathy for them.

This afternoon when I asked her what she liked about them she replied:

"They way they feel in my hands. The one I caught yesterday was wrapping itself around my fingers, like, I want to stay with you! Sometimes they are like, I'm outta here!"

She is not allowed to keep a snake as a pet in the house, so, for now, she must enjoy them in the meadow.

The Backstory

For nearly one hundred years a beautiful house lived in a beautiful garden on the corner of 5th and Polk.

After a devastating fire in 2010, the house-less lot sat for a couple years with a "For Sale" sign in the planting verge out front. The owner, who lost everything in the fire, moved out of state. The lot filled up with trash. Weeds ran riot in the raised beds, fast-growing invasive trees and shrubs shot for the sky, and the meticulously cultivated formal garden went totally bananas.

Even so, elements of that formal garden remained: Raised beds, stone walls, and brick pathways. Pink and white dogwoods, enormous azaleas, a coral bark Japanese maple, fruit-bearing peach trees, a weeping magnolia, roses, ornamental cherries, holly trees, too many ornamental grasses and vines to name, and a small hardy orange tree growing in the middle of a bamboo grove.

"No hunting, trapping, fishing or trespassing! " read the signs on the gates. Still, ladies of the night, and sometimes ladies of the mid-afternoon, took their Johns to the bamboo grove. The lot became a place to misbehave.

Sometimes I put on my heavy gloves and picked up a token bag of trash around the picket fence while my children climbed trees and picked flowers. My small house with its small yard is just down the street from the lot. In fact, when I first bought my house, I would show off the house and garden at the corner of 5th and Polk to visitors.

"See? That's a nice house," I'd say, trying to impress my visitors with the worthiness of my mostly working-class neighborhood.

I didn't know yet that some of the worst-looking houses held the best neighbors.

Today, the long double lot, with a downward slope facing north away from a busy street, still has trees and bushes growing against the fence surrounding the property. Of course, there is an empty place in the middle where the house used to be. Standing in this private meadow one late-summer day I felt an stab of desire for the land. I fall into crushes with land like this every so often, the desire to own it and protect it and keep it exactly the way it is, except maybe make it a little bit better. Usually, the land is way out of my price range, but this lot was almost doable.

Some of the lot was clay and mud, but some of it was tall grass, like a real meadow, and it was full of birds. 

 We knew the owner slightly, and when we called him on the phone he gave us a very nice deal. I think he was happy to sell it, finally. We borrowed money from our parents, collected our tax return, cashed in some savings, and bought the lot.

We hauled out a ton of trash, cleared the fallen limbs, and pulled up piles of privet (a lot remains still.) We had an inaugural bonfire, and mixed the ashes into the clay. We spread mulch, sowed seeds of grasses and flowers, and planted two native trees (a persimmon and a paw paw.) We removed the signs reading, "No hunting, trapping, fishing, or trespassing."

The Butterfly Meadow is a tiny urban wilderness, inspired and informed by the Knoxville Botanical Garden Butterfly Meadow. Its purpose is to attract wildlife, especially butterflies and birds, through special plantings and lightly managing the existing trees and other plants. 

We hope that mowed paths and clearings will encourage visitors, especially children in the neighborhood, to explore, become comfortable with plants and animals, and learn to trust themselves in a place that is tangly and alive, yet surrounded by asphalt on three sides. The Parkridge Butterfly Meadow is a work in progress, but we are happy with it even now. It is not perfect, it's not meant to be. It's a different kind of nature than that found in a city-maintained park or playground. We expect to still be picking up candy wrappers and Kool-aid bottles, and we don't expect everyone who visits to be on their best behavior. But we do believe that beautiful places make the world better.

We believe these words of John Muir are true:

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul."