Don and Espie, Cache Prairie, and a Hollow Weed

Look at those faces! Can a rare plant (hollow Joe Pye weed) really be that much fun? 

The Nelsons are long-dedicated conservationists. How did they get started? The answer is as roundabout and unlikely as most things in life. When young, they both came from agriculture backgrounds and both worked at Argonne National Laboratory. Don measured low concentrations of radioactive isotopes ("both natural and from weapons testing").

Espie had a job in the newly formed High Energy Physics division. She worked as part of a small dedicated team ("always more fun, and you get more done"). As a "scanner," she manually looked at phonographic films and recorded data that had to be analyzed by a computer. Since the new division did not have any computers or computer programmers, she was sent for three weeks of training in California. Espie became the first computer programmer at HEP, writing code for accelerator experiments. (Later, when Fermi Lab started up, she left Argonne and became the first computer programmer there too. See Endnote 1.)

The grounds of Argonne had originally been an estate which had a tennis court. Espie and Don met there while playing on it. A group of Argonne friends enjoyed outdoors activities (tennis, skiing, camping, canoeing), and some of these folks had a passion for nature. As Espie described the their introduction to conservation, "We knew about spring wild flowers with our group of Argonne friends. Several of them had taken classes with Ray Schulenburg at Morton Arboretum, and one worked with him at Morton. No one mentioned summer flowers. We did not even know prairies existed."

They married and had two boys. Upon retirement, they tried to volunteer on a to-be-created fire team at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. That didn't work out, but they began working with botanist Eric Ulazek who helped them discover what it is to be a steward. (See Endnote 1 for this too. It's a great endnote.) They developed a reputation and in 1998, when Will County Forest Preserves acquired the the Vermont Cemetery Prairie, they were invited to become stewards of the great one-acre site. Thanks to Dr. Betz and Ray Schulenberg, the Nelsons and the Forest Preserves, it is now a model of small ecosystem health.

But the nature preserve wasn't enough for them. Espie’s dad had farmed vegetables for the Chicago and Joliet markets. Her brothers went into the same business, buying a few tracts including a thirty some acre patch along Lily Cache Creek. It consisted of the creek, bordering shrubby, marshy, wet prairie areas that flooded frequently, and the two agricultural fields that flooded less often.

The Nelsons developed an interest in that land – as wet as the cemetery was dry. With their background in science, they like to experiment. What would happen if they tried restoring a prairie their own way? The Lily Cache 37 acres weren't working out for the brothers (increasingly too much suburban traffic to move their farm equipment in and out; too much flooding). Don and Espie decided to attempt something unheard of. They bought the farm to restore the natural ecosystem adjacent to a residential neighborhood. 

This is the neighborhood of Lily Cache Prairie. Top right are abandoned gravel mines. Top left is Lake Renwick Heron Rookery Nature Preserve. The highway on the right is US 55. The diagonal road southwest of the suspiciously green Lake Renwick is IL 30. Lily Cache Prairie is the strip on both sides of the creek, north of Route 30 and south of Renwick Road (see also the close-in aerial photo, below). 

They approached the restoration in an organized way. First, the brothers agreed to herbicide and grow soybeans for two years – to reduce weeds. Next, they contracted with two restoration companies, J.F. New and Pizzo Associates, to assemble a basic seed mix and install the initial plantings, one for each field. Comparing the work of two companies appealed to them.

But the main challenge, as they perceived it, they’d take on themselves. Over time they’d install more diverse species; they’d burn annually; and they’d combat the invasives they knew would descend during the healing process. 

There are few healthy examples of floodplain prairies. This one is an inspiration. Perhaps the most impressive species for me was the towering “hollow Joe Pye weed” (Eupatorium or Eutrochium fistulosum). I didn’t know the plant, had never seen it, and apparently made a quizzical expression. Don hastily said, “I wouldn’t have put it in, but it was already here.” 

Nine feet tall with fat purple stems.

Hollow Joe Pye weed is up to nine feet tall with fat, delicate-purple, hollow stems. According to the Flora of the Chicago Region, this species is found in swamp forest openings of the Indiana Dunes - not Illinois. Don is making an important point. Conservation is not gardening – in that we do not choose and assemble our favorite plants.

The conservation ethic for rare species has long emphasized that we do not introduce plants beyond their natural limits. But at this point we have to think twice. Why did it already grow along the stream here? Yes, we don’t want to force “oh my!” plants into every restoration. But the highest quality remnants often have species that no one would ever have expected. Nature was unimaginably rich, and all our remnants are now to some extent depleted. We should have some restorations that give opportunities for such richness to return. In the case of hollow Joe Pye weed, it naturally occurs west, east, and south of DuPage county. Lily Cache Prairie gives another chance to figure out what its needs are. Perhaps it should be restored to other carefully selected gravelly places, with seed from here.

The Nelsons think about these things. They are part of a little community of volunteer stewards who work all over Will County, including Midewin. The Forest Preserve web site has a great "Meet the Volunteer Stewards" video starring the Nelsons. Aerial shots show them working, as specks in the ecosystem. In the video Don says, “We're both beyond 75 at this point, so we know we're not going to be doing this 25 years from now.” Probably not, but currently their passion for the rare nature in their care seems youthful.  

Lily Cache Prairie
On both sides of Lily Cache Creek
north of IL Route 30.

Drier species grow in a small, more upland section.
Shown in bloom here is Illinois tick-trefoil (Desmodium illinoense).
For more on what Don, Espie, and Matt were talking about, see the two links below.

A related post, "The Future of Prairie?", grew out of Matt Evans' questions to Don and Espie Nelson about the Illinois Nature Preserves System, as did the post "Vermont Cemetery Prairie" which has some additional fun facts about that apparently "longest burned" prairie in Illinois.

Endnotes

Endnote 1

Espie writes the following splendid little history:

We knew about spring wild flowers with our group of Argonne friends. Several of them took classes with Ray Schulenburg and one worked with him at Morton. No one mentioned summer flowers. We did not know prairies existed.

At the beginnings of Midewin, there was a local newspaper blurb about a training session to do burns at Midewin. Who isn't fascinated with fire? We took the regular USFS fire training to fight fires out West. We passed the written test. Not a chance we could pass the Back-Pack or the Step Test. About the same time, the USFS also scraped the possible use of volunteers to do burns at Midewin. We noticed that there was another volunteer possibility there. We met up with Eric Ulazek and learned that there were summer wild flowers and that there were prairies. Brand new to us!! We wandered with him collecting seed along RR tracks, remnants along Old Rt 66, Midewin and other spots. Did seed cleaning, planting in trays, weeding, transplanted seedlings, planted plugs in the seedbeds, did more weeding, etc. It was great fun with a small enthusiastic group of volunteers, and of course, Eric. He was a great teacher and still corrects my ID errors. Eric was the catalyst for both of us.

Now for the Fermi part. I was the first computer programmer for High Energy Physics at Argonne and the first computer programmer at Fermi. HEP obtained its first computer, a Recomp II, to analyze experimental data. This was before personal computers existed. The memory was small; input was a typewriter or paper tape. Output was a typewriter, paper tape or as a graph. And the language was octal (machine language). I was asked to attend a 3 week course in CA. That was my introduction to computer work. Later, I used other languages with different computers. As HEP grew, more computer programmers were hired.

When Fermi was started, it had no computer. All the computation was done at Argonne on IBM equipment. The computer program that was to be used to test the accelerator magnets was an existing one from Berkley, CA. But Berkley did not use IBMs. I switched to Fermi and helped the experts convert the program. My badge number was 170.

I don't think the prairie was started while I was at Fermi. It was a busy time working with eager people all focused on one purpose. Same thing with a new HEP Division. Same thing with Midewin. Same thing with Langham Island. Same thing with Lily Cache Prairie, etc, etc. You always have more fun, get more done, when a core of people working together are reaching for the same goal.

Thanks

To Kathy Garness and Eriko Kojima for editing and proofing.

Vermont Cemetery Prairie - an Illinois Nature Preserve

Native Americans lived on this prairie until the early eighteen-hundreds. Indeed, during the Black Hawk War of 1832, local Potawatomi helped protect the settler folks they considered their allies in the nearby Napir Settlement (now Naperville). In 1843, European immigrants (including some, it is said, from Vermont) laid out one acre here as a cemetery. Holes were dug, and people were buried, but this one acre was never plowed for corn. After each digging and grieving, the natural diversity slowly healed. At some point, the cemetery was abandoned. 

The word "Prairie" got left out? If you look closely (upper right), you can see a black, wrought-iron fence that now surrounds the one-acre original prairie and one acre of painstakingly restored buffer.

It was here in 1961 that Professor Robert F. Betz discovered the concept of the cemetery prairie. In many counties, an occasionally mowed cemetery was the only remnant of the original landscape. (See Endnote 1.) Betz educated neighbors and soon began to cut brush and to burn again. Was Vermont Cemetery the first real prairie that scientists worked to restore? It was certainly an influential one.

At the time, fire was strictly banned from preserves managed for nature. I once asked Betz (Northeastern Illinois University) why he and his collaborator Ray Schulenberg (Morton Arboretum) thought fire might be good for it. Had they learned from the prairie burns pioneered by Aldo Leopold and other professors at University of Wisconsin in Madison who demonstrated its need during their corn-field restoration experiments during the 1940s? He said something like “Well, no, the thing is, we knew a bit about the prairie. We had long discussions about it. I think it was Ray that urged the burning. Ray had had experience with Native Americans.” So, I asked Ray Schulenburg if it was his idea, and he said something like, “We learned it from Madison.” Of course, Ray was nearly pathologically humble and always gave credit to others. 

The cemetery’s title was finally cleared up by the Natural Land Institute, which then as owner dedicated it as an Illinois Nature Preserve in 1999. Title was then transferred to the Will County Forest Preserve District, which acquired 24.4 acres of buffer, former cornfield. At that point, forest preserve staff wisely invited Espie and Don Nelson to be the volunteer stewards. (For a more detailed timeline, see Endnote 2.)

In a remarkable footnote, Don and Espie talked with descendants of the farm family that had owned the adjacent land. It turns out that Betz and Schulenberg weren’t the first European-Americans to burn there. The farm wife who lived nearby had tired of gunshots from hunters in the abandoned cemetery, so she had the thatch burned off every fall so the rabbits and their hunters would move elsewhere. Her fires gave prairie recovery a head start. Betz, and the Nelsons, and Will County have burned annually. This prairie seems to have been burned annually for well over sixty years, perhaps the longest anywhere? 

Irreplaceable remnants deserve resolute protection and good management.
But nature should be for people too. We need more of it. (See Endnote 2.)

The left half of this photo is original prairie; the right half is restoration. The restored acre is more flowery today, but where most flowers bloom at any given time depends on which species are in bloom then. Today blooming "showy tick-trefoil" colors up the right half. Tick-trefoil is a species that does especially well in restorations. But a close-up look shows more rich diversity on the left.

In the center of the original remnant, prairie coreopsis blooms and buds are starting to open on flowering spurge and lead plant. The big leaves are prairie dock. 

What’s the best way to steward a one-acre gem nature preserve? The Nelsons first resumed weed control and burning; then they marked out a surrounding additional one acre that they would lovingly restore with seed from the remnant. When the Forest Preserve District took down Betz’ cyclone fence and put up the wrought-iron, they included within it the Nelson’s buffer. This prairie now has a one-acre core remnant, one-acre high quality buffer inside the fence, and another 23 acres of restored prairie outside.  Rare animals and plants with larger populations have better chances to survive and evolve in response to changed air quality, rain composition, and climate. Multiplying the size by 24 does not ensure sustainability, but it vastly aids it. 

When you stand on the line between remnant and buffer, there’s no mystery where remnant stops, and restoration begins. A drop of a foot and a half marks the step from remnant to former cornfield. Some people claim that steep little slope represents the amount of soil eroded away during the century of farming. Don points out that there are other possible explanations; perhaps the farmer’s plough turned the soil away as he plowed right up to the cemetery edge. In any case, the demarcation is clear. 

Espie and Don started restoring that acre of buffer about 2004. They broadcast seed from the remnant for about three years. Because they found just a few seeds of nodding wild onion and western sunflower, they gave the seed they did find to Possibility Place Nursery, which grew the plants in little pots. The Nelsons then planted the year-old plugs among the weeds and seedlings from the broadcast seed. 

After a mere 15 years, the vegetation of the painstakingly restored buffer is still strikingly different from the original prairie (see photo and caption below). “In the buffer we can carefully step between the rarest plants,” says Espie. “In the remnant, there’s no spot to put down your foot, except on quality plants.”  

(As I write, it’s a bit strange to look at this photo on my computer. When I was studying the vegetation, I had no awareness of fences, power transmission lines, or subdivision housing. I was in the ancient ecosystem and looked at this little universe of prairie, as in the next photo, below.)

As Matt, Espie, Don, and I study the vegetation, we look for clues that might teach us. To consider the species that bloomed first – like prairie betony, bastard toadflax, and shooting star – we have to push aside the heart-leaved Alexanders and phlox that bloomed next – and the tick-trefoil and coreopsis blooming now – and the pre-bloom foliage of the leadplants, tall grasses, and blazing stars that will bloom later.

Above, the original prairie is the right half of the photo and the restored buffer is the left. Most species are present on both sides. But we find much more white prairie clover, Leiberg’s panic grass, shooting star, prairie phlox, prairie dock, prairie betony, and bastard toadflax in the original. By rhizomes, the toadflax is slowly moving out into the buffer.

We pull sweet clover as we go; Don says, “We don’t come inside the fence without some important reason.” Today our feet trample, but we repay the ecosystem by pulling invasives. Of course, the steps of bison, bear, native Americans and others had impacted the prairie for millennia, so what’s wrong with feet? But there are now so many of us and so little nature; prairie gems left accessible for people’s trampling lose quality rapidly. (See Endnote 3.) 

What are the major challenges facing the stewards today? Troublesome patches of second-priority invaders (for example Convallaria and Hemerocallis) are apparent here and there. But bigger threats approach from outside. Birdsfoot trefoil, teasel, crown vetch, and reed canary grass could do major damage. All run rampant in the nearby landscape. All need herbicding by trained stewards – to push them as far back from the fence as possible. When Don or Espie finds trefoil or vetch, they treat it and mark it with a stake, so they can return later to make sure they got it all. 

Forest preserve staff work on this too, especially in the outer 23 buffer restoration. Don says, “I think the staff wish we’d take on those acres too, but between our 30 acres at Lily Cache Prairie (see Endnote 4) and the two acres inside the fence, we have enough."  

Endnotes

Endnote 1

Following the discovery here, Betz scoured the countryside for old cemeteries. Some of them turned out to have some of the best surviving remnants, for example Weston, Loda, Beach, and Temperance Hill Cemetery Prairies ... and also savannas.  

Endnote 2 - Timeline assembled by Don:

"This is probably way more detail than you need ... but I wanted to get it straight in my own mind:

1.    Early transfers of the farm land surrounding the cemetery were done "minus the burying ground".  Any original records for the cemetery have been lost long ago.
2.    ~1930    The family who owned the surrounding farm land began annual burning of the cemetery in the fall (after harvest to discourage hunting in the cemetery).
3.    1961      Bob Betz and Ray Schulenberg begin management of the prairie    .
4.    1970     A cyclone fence is erected around the original acre.
5.    1998     FPD of Will County acquires title to the cemetery.
6.    1999     The cemetery becomes a Nature Preserve.
7.    2003     The 24.4 acre buffer is purchased.
8     2004     Restoration of a one acre portion of the buffer, surrounding the original acre, is started using only seeds collected from inside the cemetery.
9.    2011    Restoration of the remaining 23.4 acre buffer is begun using commercial seed.
10.  2012    The old fence is removed and the present fence is erected enclosing both the original acre and the one acre buffer.

As far as I can tell the cemetery has been burned in the fall almost ever year for about 80 years!"

Endnote 3 
In the long run, prairie doesn’t survive best as tiny gems. Trampling degrades some sites. Some little remnants have footpaths through them, which most people stay on. But for both scientific and political reasons, we need restored natural areas so big that kids can play and adults can flatten from time to time for whatever adults do. We need prairies big enough that we can be the bison. Some rare plants do best with various kinds of disturbance, that they may not get when prairies are treated as gems. Nachusa (with its bison) and many forest preserves (with their people) will help us learn more about such issues. But the last few endangered remnants are not the place for those experiments, at this time.  

Endnote 4

This post is the second of a series of three that arose out of Matt's visit with the Nelsons. The first introduced the Vermont prairie and the importance of the Illinois Nature Preserves System. The third considers Don and Espie as people and their "other child" - Lily Cache Prairie, which they "created" themselves, and to which they also brought Matt and me that day.

Thanks

To Eriko Kojima and Kathy Garness for helpful proofing and edits.

Future of Prairie - the view from Vermont Cemetery

Prairies, natural ecosystems, now depend on us.

This post is about two older people who have made a huge difference and one younger person who aims to.

On July 7, 2019, Matt Evans (in his twenties) questioned Espie and Don Nelson (in their seventies). The Nelsons are stewards of Vermont Cemetery Prairie Nature Preserve. Matt has a fellowship to study (and benefit, if possible) the Illinois Nature Preserves System. Part of his motivation is that he is considering a career in this field. What is its future? 

Present in absentia was the late Professor Robert F. Betz, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and who inspired the 1980s “Prairie Fever” movement of conservation and restoration. When I visited Vermont Cemetery with Bob Betz, the one-acre prairie there was already known as a “best of the best” – an ecological treasure – surrounded by cornfields to the horizon. Would it survive? I listened to the great Professor, took photos, and for years lectured about this rare acre to any audience that had an interest. Betz and his Morton Arboretum friend Ray Schulenberg were the first volunteer stewards, starting in 1961. They pulled weeds, burned annually, and raised sufficient funds to erect a cyclone fence around the gem.

Today is my first visit back in four decades. (I’d been busy, helping other sites that didn't have such good stewards.) As we approach, Matt drives, not through corn fields, but through the subdivisions and commerce of Naperville. Bless their governmental hearts, the Will County Forest Preserve District acquired the cemetery and 24.4 surrounding acres of cornfields as buffer to establish the Vermont Cemetery Preserve. 

Matt Evans peers through the protective fence, as he prepares to meet a rare Grade A prairie and two rare Grade A people.  

An uncommon grassland bird, the dickcissel, sings its heart out as Espie unlocks the gate. Matt and I are allowed inside the fence as a rare privilege. But to survive, this prairie will need friends and stewards forever. Might it be hard to acquire them, locked behind a fence? We pull weeds. No casual hiker can enter the sacred Grade A one acre. Even the semi-sacred, one-acre special buffer, that was planted by the Nelsons with seed from the cemetery, is enclosed behind the wrought iron. Most people have to look through the fence. 

The Illinois Nature Preserves System was a world model. How's it doing now? Matt has been seeking insights and suggestions from officials and volunteers around the state.

“Staff can’t be the only managers of a place like this,” says Espie. They both speak fondly and even affectionately about staff people who have contributed over the years. “Will County Forest Preserves own about 20,000 acres – with less than ten people to manage them. That’s 2,500 acres each. A hard-working person cannot provide first-rate management to that amount. They need more volunteers. Staff will never have the time to do what we do.” 

Looking for sweet clover, we tiptoe in a wide loop to cover the whole two acres. Some invasives are still serious problems, after all these years. Some need herbicide. The challenge is to cure the infection without damaging the irreplaceable patient.  Matt asks whether Betz and Schulenberg advised them. “Schulenberg came once,” said Don. “He was reverential. Walked slowly and examined carefully. He had visited but hadn't been inside the fence since he and Betz installed it.” The famously humble Schulenberg figured that if other people were to be excluded, who was he to defile rare nature with his feet? And he knew that Betz was pulling the weeds. 

Matt asks the Nelsons how much of this work they do. Since retiring, they volunteer in natural areas several days a week, typically for three or four hours. “When we took this on, almost twenty years ago,” Don says, “we decided to do it as long as we were able, and as long as it was fun.” His eyes sparkled. It’s clearly still fun. 

Espie and Don represent the founding generation of natural areas stewards, for which the Chicago region became a role model for the planet. Matt could be said to represent the generation that wonders where all this is going. 

As at Vermont Cemetery and Lily Cache Prairie (shown above), nature preserves cared for by people like the Nelsons increasingly thrive. Others deteriorate. This blog has celebrated Illinois nature preserve history and heroes. It has also reported on sites in serious trouble, like Langham Island and Palatine Prairie.

Illinois Nature Preserves are supported by many dedicated staff and stewards, but perhaps not enough advocates. Some people argue that the preserves need bully pulpits and people to speak from them. What else do they need? Last January I wrote a few people around the state, asking for ideas. 

It turned out that a five-year Strategic Plan for the Illinois Nature Preserves System had been on line for the years 2015-2020. It painted a grim picture of a deterioration. It also provided an inspiring plan for the future. But it's posted as a draft, seeking comments by December 15, 2015. What happened to comments received? Was the plan or a revision ever approved? In late January I also wrote Nature Preserves Commission chair Donnie Dann for more info, exchanging a few emails over the months. He sought answers, but no one seemed to have them. 

Comments were to go to the Director, but according to the current website, that position as well as the other two top positions are “Vacant.” Under Governors Blagojevich, Quinn, and Rauner, conservation has suffered. Natural areas staff at all levels have been slashed throughout the Department of Natural Resources. The Nature Preserves Director position has been vacant for four years. 

Finally, on July 23, 2019, the answer came. The plan was indeed approved by the Commission on Sept. 15, 2015. The remaining staff are doing their best. Much is not getting done. 

Illinois long stood in the global forefront of conservation with the creation of the forest preserves, the Nature Preserves Commission, the ecosystem restoration movement, Natural Areas Inventory, Chicago Wilderness, four decades of big biennial conferences, and more. Are we still leading? What's now needed most? Matt asks such questions – as he considers local and planetary ecosystems – and where he can best contribute, as do many of us. 

The activists and stewards of the seventies and eighties fostered a community of conservationists that Matt has studied in school and hopes to contribute to in real life. Volunteers have been a major constituency, deserving credit for supporting budgets and staff – which increased dramatically, for some years, and then declined. As result or cause or both, some say that the community declines. Will staff replace volunteers? There’s much that staff can do better than volunteers. Is there also much that volunteers can do best – and could both groups benefit if they understood and supported each other better? 

The Grade A prairie at Vermont Cemetery is worth study.
An upcoming post will delve more. 

Matt has worked as a volunteer steward and professionally for Chicago Wilderness and Audubon Chicago Region. He likes to promote useful communication. Some of the people he has talked with early on have suggested that a Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves could be helpful to support staffing and budgets as well as recruiting and facilitating more stewards. Perhaps Matt would be willing to report back through this blog, as his work proceeds. 

For this post, I originally wrote lots more, or perhaps too much. The first companion post goes deeper into Vermont Cemetery Prairie. The third focuses personally on Don and Espie Nelson and also Lily Cache Prairie (another proposed nature preserve site, which the four of us also visited).