3 ms·

After the three year California drought and not watering the lawn much during it, I just let the grass and wild flowers grow up without mowing the last few year

After the three year California drought and not watering the lawn much during it, I just let the grass and wild flowers grow up without mowing the last few years. Lots of different kind of plants, many bees, etc. Pretty cool, although some people comment on how we have let the yard go. I wish I could do a controlled burn at the start of the rainy season. On the other hand, I recently learned what a carpenter bee is and what they can do to exposed wood structures. This year was the first time I had them boring into the wooden eves of our house. I have mixed feelings when I see them now.

saiya-jin 8y ago
What exactly do you mean by controlled burn? If it is what I think it is, you will kill many insects that call that lawn their home. Not really good for anything (plus the risk of burning down the neighborhood)
- njarboe 8y ago
  Of course burning my front lawn would never be allowed and I understand the reasons for that but ever since humans arrived (15,000 years or so ago) California grasslands would burn quite often. The "native" ecosystem was adapted to it and I think it would be fun to see what a few years of buring would do to the biological diversity of my little bit of grassland.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Baeocystin 8y ago
    California has been burning for far longer than people have been here. Human presence did, of course, alter things, but natural ignitions due to lightning strikes shaped the ecology for millennia before we showed up. https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/FireForestEcology/FireScienceResearch/FireHistory/FireHistory-Stephens07.pdf https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/Fi...
    - njarboe 8y ago
      This looks like an interesting paper. I'll read in over in detail, but from the abstract this paper is discussing the suppression of fire after Euro-American settlement in the 1800's. Fires caused by Native Americans is discussed as the cause, along with lightning, and I don't think lightning is a big factor in (Northern) California wildfires. While lighting is a major cause of fire throughout the Rocky Mountains, they are less of a factor in California, especially along the coast and central valley. I have lived in Oakland for over two decades and the number of thunderstorms I've seen/heard here is less than a half-dozen. We don't get the same kind of bad lightning storms that occur in the Rockies where the monsoons bring up thunderstorms from the south during otherwise dry summers. Maybe in the San Bernardino mountains near LA get a few of these summer lightening storms. It would be interesting to read about pre-human fire occurrence rates in the grasslands of California but, as this study states, preserved evidence of grass fires more than 15,000 years ago are rare.

saiya-jin 8y ago

What exactly do you mean by controlled burn? If it is what I think it is, you will kill many insects that call that lawn their home. Not really good for anything (plus the risk of burning down the neighborhood)

njarboe 8y ago
Of course burning my front lawn would never be allowed and I understand the reasons for that but ever since humans arrived (15,000 years or so ago) California grasslands would burn quite often. The "native" ecosystem was adapted to it and I think it would be fun to see what a few years of buring would do to the biological diversity of my little bit of grassland.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Baeocystin 8y ago
  California has been burning for far longer than people have been here. Human presence did, of course, alter things, but natural ignitions due to lightning strikes shaped the ecology for millennia before we showed up. https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/FireForestEcology/FireScienceResearch/FireHistory/FireHistory-Stephens07.pdf https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/Fi...
  - njarboe 8y ago
    This looks like an interesting paper. I'll read in over in detail, but from the abstract this paper is discussing the suppression of fire after Euro-American settlement in the 1800's. Fires caused by Native Americans is discussed as the cause, along with lightning, and I don't think lightning is a big factor in (Northern) California wildfires. While lighting is a major cause of fire throughout the Rocky Mountains, they are less of a factor in California, especially along the coast and central valley. I have lived in Oakland for over two decades and the number of thunderstorms I've seen/heard here is less than a half-dozen. We don't get the same kind of bad lightning storms that occur in the Rockies where the monsoons bring up thunderstorms from the south during otherwise dry summers. Maybe in the San Bernardino mountains near LA get a few of these summer lightening storms. It would be interesting to read about pre-human fire occurrence rates in the grasslands of California but, as this study states, preserved evidence of grass fires more than 15,000 years ago are rare.