Snowy Slumber

"Change will come as surely as the seasons, and twice as quick."

                              - Louisa May Alcott

Indeed, the Berry Prairie has changed a lot this year.  In a lot of ways.  A new design, a new plant list, a new irrigation system, a new mulch cover, and all just in the time for the snow. 

Laramie experienced a wonderful, long fall.  Temperatures were mild through all of September and October, and only this past week did we get any substantial snowfall.  We're thanking our lucky stars, and hoping this bodes well for the new green roof plants come spring.

But for now, we enter our winter senescence.  Until spring, here are a few photos of the roof as you'll see it.

 

 

 

 Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute

Green Roof Mulch

The Berry Prairie has a tannish-tone to it these days.  One of the big issues in the original roof was that the black growing medium (the fake dirt) absorbed so much of the intensive, high-elevation sun that it was very, very hot on a regular basis.  The plants did not seem to care for this much, so we've tried to tackle this problem through two different solutions:

1. Pop-up irrigation.  The cool water coming from above (rather than below as with the drip in the previous edition) will help cool all layers of the growing medium.

Photo from Sept. 19

2.  Light-colored mulch.  We used a "rose" colored, 3/8" pea gravel spread 1" deep all over the roof.  This lighter color will help prevent so much absorption and look/act more like a native prairie with their light-colored soils.

You can see the difference in color between the tan pea gravel (right and top of image) and the darker growing medium (left of image)

Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute

Prairies, Plants and Plots

Wheatland, Wyoming is a small town in the southeastern part of the state which is sometimes described as "more like Nebraska than Wyoming."  Where it's not dominated by agriculture, the landscape around that area is mostly mixed-grass prairie, and receives about 13 inches of rain (this is info you can pull from WyoBio using different map layers - check it out at wyobio.org!).

Satellite image of Wheatland, WY from wyobio.org

Each year, all of the 6th graders from Wheatland come to the Berry Center for a biodiversity day.  This introduces the concept of biodiversity by going to five different stations:

• "Blackbirds and black birds of Wheatland" in the Vertebrate Collection
• "Atoms and Food Webs" in the Stable Isotope Facility
• "Prairie Dogs: Pest or best of the west?" in the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database
• "Getting to know a few Wheatland plants" in the Rocky Mountain Herbarium
• "Prairie Structure and Diversity" on the Berry Prairie

Berry Prairie Debut

That means the new Berry Prairie's debut was to 75 twelve-year-olds, and it worked GREAT! 

In the Prairie Structure and Diversity station, each group and I discussed why prairies in Wyoming are shorter than prairie is Wisconsin (rain shadow), why prairie plants have such deep roots (access to water and protection from fire), why fire is so important in these ecosystems (cleans out the shrubs and non-natives and facilitates regrowth of native plants), and why prairie dogs are beneficial to prairie health (mostly due to aeration of the soil and nutrient cycling).  We talked about food webs, who eats what, what happens when you take out a species from the system, and why that's important.

After this, the kids broke into small groups and head onto the green roof, where they surveyed a plot for species richness (number of individual plants of a certain type, the kids counted how many individual grasses, shrubs, cacti and forbs) and diversity (how many species of each type).  

Then we discussed how the prairie might look different or change if it received 10 more inches of rain per year.  Or if fire went through every other year.  And how animals help maintain the prairie ecosystem.

This is always of the best days of the year at the Berry Center, filled with enthusiasm, expanding minds and questions.  It was great to use the Berry Prairie to teach these lessons!

Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute

The Hills Are Alive

The photos of the Berry Prairie just can't do it justice, it's so much more inviting and interesting than a picture can portray!  The hills add a great vertical dimension, tucking and rolling through the 3600 sq. ft. of roof.  Each mound is home to scores of plants, ranging from cacti and penstemon in the prairie section to clematis and pasqueflower in the foothills and phlox and sedge in the alpine.  The hills are alive!

If you live in Laramie, you are welcome to come by the Berry Center's green roof to take a gander through the garden during daylight hours.  If you don't live in Laramie, here are a few more photos that hopefully capture the vibrancy of the new Berry Prairie.

Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute

Green Roof Remodel: Ta-Da!

The green roof is finished!  Wow, what a process, what a project!  It went from a flat, local, lovely yet somewhat dull prairie to a curvy, diverse and intriguing set of ecotones. 

 Before:

After:

A photo gallery of the roof is below.  Come by the Berry Center to walk through the roof to get an up-close look.

Prairie section:

Consists of lots of drought-tolerant plants, including cacti, yucca, twinpod, draba, sulfur flower, grasses, liatris, and more.

Foothills section:

Consists mostly of shrubs, a little more water-loving forbs like dwarf pussytoes, clematis, pasqueflower, bitterroot and more, and grasses.

Alpine section:

Consists of mostly sedges and short or super cold-hardy, water happy plants like phlox, moss campion, man on the mountain, nodding onion, columbine and more.

This neat little plant (Telesonix, green fan-shaped leaves under rocks) is a water- and shade-loving crevice plant.  Cutie, eh?

Monitoring irrigation for adjustments:

The last thing to do on on the roof before it's 100% buttoned up is adjust the irrigation so the spray zones are matched to the planting zones.  That way, we can make sure that the cacti and columbine aren't getting the same amount of water (you can imagine the results!). 

Open to the public

The green roof is now ready for anyone to walk through and explore.  Please stay on the pathways and watch for tiny or prickly plants!  Let us know what you think!

Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute

Green Roof Remodel: End of Day 28

Irrigation!!  Hallelujah, happy day!  The green roof is so close to complete, you can almost taste it!  The irrigation system is in, the plants are happy and watered, and the mess of pots are off the roof.  The only things left to do are tweek some of the sprinkler heads, fill in some of the gaps with flowers we are picking up tomorrow at Laporte Avenue Nursery near Fort Collins, CO, and mulch the whole roof with light-colored pea gravel.  Stay tuned!

 

This lovely rock we found during our cactus hunting expedition.  Look at the diversity of lichens on this single rock!  We put it in a spot of honor near the entrance gate.

Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute

Green Roof Remodel: End of Day 24 (late!)

Friday was another productive day, including planting some of the last plants and installing the irrigation.  We're waiting on a couple more sprinkler heads, to finish the irrigation, and are at a stand-still until that happens.

Laying irrigation: 

Dorothy and I went out to a ranch where we (legally and with permission) harvested cacti of 3 varieties: Prickly Pear (Opuntia polyacantha), Mountain Ball (Pediocactus simpsonii) and Pincushion (Coryphantha vivipara).  Incidentally, my new favorite food is cactus fruit.

Here are the cacti in situ:

Pincushion Cactus

Prickly Pear Cactus in the foreground, with Pincushion Cactus in the background.

We are doing more plant shopping on Wednesday to find wildflowers to fill in some of the gaps, so more new plants are on the way!  Stay tuned!

Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute

Green Roof Remodel: End of Day 24

Yesterday was a much more pleasant day for planting, and planting we did!  The landscaping crew made incredible progress, and this morning are now out there in 45 degree weather finishing up the last little areas. 

Photos of the progress:

 

 

Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute

Green Roof Remodel: End of Day 23

Yesterday was a wet, sloppy, cold day to be planting - but we planted nonetheless!  The first of the new green roof plants were plugged into the growing medium, starting with the ones on the north end (alpine section) and moving south.  And with predictions of hard freezing and possibly snow on Thursday night, we're working as fast as we can to get these plants in the ground.

Photos of the progress:

End of the day photos:

And lots more to do!

Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute