Malcolm vidrine

Connecting to Audiences through Louisiana Prairie Gardens Malcolm F. Vidrine Cajun Prairie Gardens www.cajunprairiegardens.com

The garden

Pedosphere (atmosphere) with 1/3 of the biomass.

Lithosphere (rhizosphere) with 2/3s of the biomass.

Carbon-capture model.

Presentation Outline • • • • • • • •

A bit of history Pollinator gardens Soil conservation gardens Biodiversity gardens Carbon sequestration gardens Are our small gardens enough?

Cajun Prairie Gardens through the year Biodiversity is the key

A Bit of History • The Great Southwestern Louisiana Prairie aka The Cajun Prairie covered 2.5 million acres in 1700. A vast array of grasses and wildflowers dissected by bayous lined by gallery forests. The French divided the land along the bayous into long lots. The open prairie was later divided into square lots by the Americans.

Remnant prairies in the Cajun Prairie • Charles Allen and Malcolm Vidrine visited these remnant prairies in the 1980s and 1990s—many routinely!

• Three major named prairies with good remnants were visited: Mermentau, Calcasieu and Plaquemine. Other prairies had very small or poor quality remnants.

The Gardens of Man • Our gardens usually focus on the plants—the central theme of nearly every garden.

• Our focus must be broadened to include all of the realms: pedosphere (the surface of the Earth, where the above-ground plants are), atmosphere, lithosphere (rhizosphere, where the roots are), and the hydrosphere (from nearby watersheds to water in plants & soil).

My focus always relates to the biota, i. e.

BIODIVERSITY.

Ornamental Gardens • The bottom line, as far as acceptability, is this: ALL GARDENS MUST BE

ORNAMENTAL IF THEY ARE TO BE ACCEPTED

BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

Theme-oriented gardens: Specific • • • • • • •

Sunflower or pea gardens Sense (scent, visual, touch, audio) gardens Dragonfly, damselfly or orbweaver gardens Hummingbird or songbird gardens Butterfly or moth gardens Milkweed and Monarch gardens History lesson gardens

Theme-oriented gardens: General Prairie gardens—focused on native plants Pollinator gardens—focused on pollinators Predator gardens—focused on predators Soil conservation/biota gardens—focused on soil life • Water gardens—focused on supplying water, aquatic life and/or water remediation • Biodiversity gardens—focused on any or all of the above biota-oriented gardens.

• • • •

Pollinator Gardens • Save the pollinators?

The Pollinators • • • • • • •

Bees and wasps Butterflies and moths Birds Bats Beetles Flies and bugs Mammals, etc.

How many different groups of pollinators can you find?

The 800 pound gorilla in the garden!!!

Another 800 pound gorilla in the garden—the emblem of the North American prairies and landscapes.

Before Mexican snowstorm

The story of the discovery of the potential ecological impacts of endocrine disruptors, including: Roundup and 2-4D DDT and Atrazine Soy products Malathion and OPs Bisphenol A and C http://www.pan-uk.org/ pestnews/Actives/ endocrin.htm

Glyphosate

An everyday event in the Cajun Prairie, usually from dawn to dusk.

Everybody in my neighborhood has to have a spraying rig with a 500 gallon drum and > 100’ of hose to get to those out-of-the-way places!!!

Dilemmas • While gardening efforts are growing arithmetically, use of biocides is growing exponentially.

• Insecticide use had apparently dropped a bit, but herbicide use soared with RoundupReady crops.

• With Zika virus fears, all bets are off.

Predator gardens • • • • • •

Predators include: Dragonflies & damselflies, Spiders & preying mantids, Wasps and many insects, Birds, birds, birds, And of course, the greatest predators in the world—dogs and cats.

The Dragonfly Garden • Dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata) are the most ancient insects surrounding us— significantly older than flowers themselves.

•

http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/7-things-you-never-knew-about-dragonflies

• More than 80 species occur in Louisiana; many of the species are common in open meadows and prairies.

Dragonflies • These aerial acrobats are diverse and colorful and relatively easy to identify.

• The males and females are often color-coded —obvious sexual dimorphism.

• Their lives are second only to butterflies, birds and trees as far as being the central figure in tales of our ancient ancestors.

The Dragonfly Garden • The garden needs only a pond, unless you have a stream or a pond nearby (and in Louisiana—most of us apparently live within the boundaries of overflow of a stream)—and if so these are not needed.

• My favorite dragonfly is the Widow skimmer—summer visitors in my garden.

The Dragonfly Garden • Enhances our concepts of biodiversity • Reduces mosquito, lovebug, and other insect populations • Enhances the food supply of young nestlings much as caterpillars do • Entertains the visitors with their acrobats, diversity and ability to tease the viewer’s lenses—as extraordinary photographic subjects.

Soil Conservation Gardens & Carbon Sequestration Gardens • Save the soil biota?

• The lithosphere or rhizosphere—the realm of the roots and underground stems, and the location of large reserves of carbon.

Brid’s Nest Fungus

Cajun Prairie soil animals • • • • • • • • •

Painted (Red) devil crayfish et al.

Fire ants and other ants Cicadas & Cicada-killer wasps Snakes, toads, shrews and mice Subterranean termites Earthworms and Hammerhead worms Bees and wasps Love bugs (Plecia nearctica) Frogs and toads.

Cicada-killer wasp

Cicada

Bipalium kewense—a land planarian—t so-called Hammerhead worm. .

Plecia nearctica

The Carbon Sequestration Garden • This one may not be ornamental, but its goal is to sequester carbon to commercially trade for carbon credits in an international exchange in the midst of climate change. • Prairies are notable for their ability to store carbon underground in contrast to most forests, which store carbon aboveground and belowground; however, belowground storage is modest compared to prairies.

Pedosphere (atmosphere) with 1/3 of the biomass.

Lithosphere (rhizosphere) with 2/3s of the biomass.

Carbon-capture model.

Why do we need to sequester carbon?

• Carbon is accumulating exponentially in our atmosphere; it is not only a greenhouse gas, but it is a lethal acidifying agent.

• Our oceans are uptaking much of this carbon excess, but it is acidifying the oceans and killing the life in them.

• We can help by sequestering carbon in the old fashion way—in our soils and plants!

Steven Apfelbaum • In 2012, Steven Apfelbaum of Applied Ecological Services, Inc in Brodhead, WI, sampled the Eunice restorations as part of a study of the carbon carrying capacity and efficacy of the Cajun Prairie plants in sequestering carbon. • Meter-deep cores demonstrated the development of clearly obvious massive root systems in the restoration sites.

Water Gardens • Including • Water features

Water gardens and features • The presence of water is essential in the garden as it provides drink for birds, pollinators and more. • However, the water feature is the likely growing place for mosquitoes, e. g., the Asian Tiger Mosquito—the common vector of the Zika virus and other pathogens.

Aedes albopictus—Asian tiger mosquito--vector of the Zika virus.

Elaborate water elements • A pond or fish containing element is a potential source for mosquitoes, but it is also a place for dragonfly and other insect larvae.

However, these are not generally habitat for the Asian tiger mosquito, which prefers old tires, containers and other small water features.

Watery landscapes in western LA • • • • • •

Rice fields Crayfish farms Fishing ponds and lakes Irrigation canals Marshes and bottomlands Thus, we have large populations & communities of dragonflies and mosquitoes (in general, aquatic insects) and birds.

Biodiversity Gardens • Save our plants, animals, etc.? • The garden taken all the realms into consideration.

The biodiversity garden • The model must include a garden focused on all of the major kinds of living things from bacteria to fungi to plants and animals and protists. • The model must also include interests in the realms of the ecosystem, with focuses on the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere.

Are our small gardens enough? • Only enough to start! And use as outdoor classrooms, even if only in a drive-by!!!

Gardens need to get very large, very quickly—landscapes are the only answer to questions of biodiversity.

The Cajun Prairie Gardens
 • The personal gardens of the Vidrine family in Eunice, Louisiana.

The Cajun Prairie Gardens

April 2012

th 2013—17

Year

• The following slides show the gardens in the 17th year of development

Other Cajun Prairie Gardens • • • •

THE CPHPS projects in Eunice Duralde Prairie CEET Marc Pastorek’s numerous fantastic projects, visit Marc at Meadowmaker. Seed Man. Artist. http://meadowmakers.com/

Other Prairie Projects • I recently visited 3 interesting projects in Illinois, while I was attending the North American Prairie Conference. • Prairie projects are growing in size and numbers throughout the range of the original prairies, but the total area is still microscopic in comparison to the original prairie.

Tipton Park, Bloomington, IL • A restored prairie with water remediation features for drainage and walkways surrounded by a residential subdivision with half million dollar homes.

• Maintained by the city park commission.

• July 19, 2016.

Kickapoo Creek, Bloomington, IL • Another subdivision surrounding a restored prairie with emphasis on flood control and waste-water remediation. • July 19, 2016.

University of Evansville, IN • A 5 year old hand-planted garden between classroom buildings on campus. • Dale Edwards and Cris Hochwender (ch81@evansville.edu). Cris leads the project.

University of Evansville in Evansviller, IN

Biodiversity • Sampling in Cajun Prairie remnants in the 1980s showed that ~40 plant species/m2 • Restorations, even the 30 year old example, contains ~10 plant species/m2 • Thus our gardens are at best 25% as diverse per unit area—the prairie is an example of cooperation-competition-coevolution both above and below ground.

Microprairies • ‘USDA et al.’s program will provide habitat for pollinators AND a refuge/potential inoculation source of soil biota for nearby fields and habitats.’ Bruno Borsari, Neal Mundahl and M. Vidrine’s NAPC-2016 paper, ‘Soil invertebrates abundance and diversity: A Comparison of Soil Biodiversity in Restored Prairie Plots and Agricultural Fields at a Biomass Production Farm in Southeastern Minnesota.’

Local projects • St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission in Opelousas, LA by Marc Pastorek.

• Mitigation banks—the next great opportunity for landscape-sized projects in habitat restoration.

• The new pollinator program sponsored by the USDA, NRCS & USGS.

St. Landry Parish Welcome Center north of Opelousas • A prairie project by Marc Pastorek of Pastorek Habitats.

• Celeste Gomez, longtime member of CPHPS, orchestrated the placement of this habitat at the center.

• Project originated in 2010.

• National Award winning project in 2016.

Ecological (Services) garden concept • A garden that mimics nature, e. g., a prairie garden.

• A biodiversity garden emphasizing native species in all of the kingdoms: plants, animals, fungi, protists and bacteria.

• A garden specifically designed to make the ecological rolls of the biota recognizable, e. g., photosynthesis, pollination, predation, grazing at the micro and macro levels, decomposition, nutrient mobilization, carbon sequestration and even human activities like burning, weeding, etc.

• A sustainable, mostly perennial garden requiring little or no biocides nor fertilizers, but it requires managing!

Ecological Services • Their value based upon ecological economics exceeds our GDP. • We need these services not only to survive but also to continue our economic survival.

• We devalue these at our peril.

Conclusion • We need to accept and teach that the Earth is now a collection of human gardens, and gardens need to be tended less they ruin!

• And we must act upon this knowledge immediately—I suggest creating huge ecological gardens and making them the focus of our communities, schools, businesses and homes.

• This is the next great human adventure!

“Whistling past the graveyard” • Two connotations: • The first connotes a situation in which a person does something (whistling, maybe?) to make of show – to others, or even more commonly, to oneself — of bravery, or at least nonchalance, in the face of danger or difficulties.

• The second meaning describes an individual who is genuinely confident and cheerful while in pursuit of a course of action at the same time blithely oblivious to the real risks involved – i.e., clueless.

• Interestingly, graveyards were a great place to find prairie remnants and a clue to historical ecology.

Obvious Trends • Exponential human population growth— expect 8 billion by 2025.

• Exponential growth in use of biocides.

• Exponential increase in atmosphere carbon dioxide, methane, and sulfur gases.

• Exponential conversion of wildlands to agriculture then to turfgrass lawns.

Prairies are not on the list, but they would be off the chart.

Note the tremendous impact of the Clean Air Act of 1972.

Thank you, President Nixon!

LAWNS • For a moment, let us consider what Charles Allen refers to as ‘anti-prairie.’

• The lawn is the anti-thesis of prairie and functions much like AstroTurf or painted cement—aesthetically pleasing to humans.

• It however requires megatons of fertilizer, water and biocides, and returns little except the aesthetic sense of open space.

• The fastest growing industry is lawn care.

Loss of Habitat • U. S. Forest Service estimates that 6000 acres per day of habitat are converted to lawns (and paved areas) in the United States.

• How many acres of prairie gardens are created each day?

• http://www.fs.fed.us/projects/four-threats/ facts/open-space.shtml

These lawns do not: • Sequester significant amounts of carbon, • Promote biotic diversity, pollinators, etc.

• Allow runon water to percolate to groundwater, • Provide for creation of soil, • Grow and perform without large inputs of water, fertilizer and biocides.

No mention of rice and crayfish farms—an estimated 20-25 million acres.

Paradigm Shift • How about a paradigm shift to a paradoxical new lawn?

• A lawn that does what our paradigmatic lawn can’t do, and as far as I am concerned, ‘the new lawn is a garden that is exponentially more aesthetically pleasing.’

• What is it? It is a prairie garden lawn. It can be a small element or an entire landscape!

The new lawn has roots.

• Roots and underground stems are primary attributes of this new lawn, but there are many options.

• The first option is native or exotic, when choosing plants.

• The natives have much more potential to solve our biodiversity problem and global climate change problem.

The roots do a lot of the work.

• They store carbon, • They create habitat for soil biota, • They move surface water to ground water and shallow aquifers, • They provide food and soil structure, • They create topsoil and potable water—the least understood and most essential of all our ecological resources, excepting air.

Prairie plants’ roots • The roots of prairie plants have been intensely studied by John Weaver in the 1930s. They are incredibly diverse.

• The roots and underground stems make up essentially 70% of the biomass of the plants.

• The roots can be decades if not centuries old, and they permit ready propagation.

Big bluestem

Switchgrass

Each prairie garden must have a gardener and a theme • ‘Build it and they will come.’

• But they won’t stay!

• Prairie gardens must be tended by prairie gardeners, and each project/garden requires a gardener—a human who will monitor and maintain and take a personal interest in the garden. Every school teach prairie gardening, and every business employ a gardener! Each garden must have a theme!

The nation needs a prairie gardener! • A national ethic may be growing out of the Monarch butterfly and pollinator garden movements, but we need both a national and global effort. • Without such an ethic, nature is too complex to simply mimic. Ironically, we humans make great leaps, which turn out to be gigantic missteps. Here is one; you think of the next one!

Irony Abounds • Although the amount of insecticide used was diminished because of Bt-Corn, the herbicides (with GMO crops) have become the primary lethal weapons against insects and birds. The demise of plants essential to insect/bird survival, notably butterflies & bees that depend on a limited number of native plants & birds that depend on insects for their young are starved into extinction.

Questions • Thanks for your invitation!