Sometimes its hard to make decisions without seeing how much blackberry and pokeweed coverage there is. I am not real familiar with restoration in KY.... but here are my thoughts:

I wouldn't be too concerned about the pokeweed. If you are burning and seeding, as the stand improves; the pokeweed should just become another plant in the mix rather than a dominant plant in the mix.

You may need more than just "round-up" to take care of the blackberry. Typically one would use a shrub or woody plant herbicide mixture on that type of plant. Look for an herbicide that says shrub and brush killer that has a mixture of glyphosphate (round-up) and 2,4-D.

Its really not the right time of year to be applying herbicides. I think your plan of a fall burn and a fall seeding would work, as long as you follow up with selective spot treatments of herbicide on the blackberry (and other shrubby invasives) as they emerge in the spring.

I'd probably cut the red cedar and treat the stumps with herbicide as well. They tend take over savannah's that are left unmanaged.

Thanks joepyeweed. Since we have been weedwhacking the area for the past three years the amount of pokeweed and blackberry brambles have been reduced considerably, generally just occuring at the transition from the open woods to the field which we mow about once a month. I think the roundup idea is a good one, I don't like to use it but "we have had to to control the aggressive poison ivy that invaded our neglected woods when we first moved here. It may be wise to wait another season and apply the Roundup next year to make sure we have it all eradicated before we seed. Patience is a virtue, as they say, especially when it comes to establishing a prairie from seed! It's just that this area is a focal point, we look down at it from the deck of the house. We have dubbed it 'The Big Ugly' and every year we debate what to do with it with the least amount of blood, sweat and tears (and money!)We have hauled out construction trash and discarded household items (people around here use sinkholes as garbage dumps) left by the previous owners who also never cared for the land. We've pulled endless amounts of sawbriar, grapevine, poison ivy, japanese honeysuckle and all sorts of other noxious vines from the trees. We've cut and cleared hundreds of redcedar saplings and small trees from the woods and around the base of mature hardwood trees in the field. Finally it dawned on us just this year (DUH!) to plant The Big Ugly with native forbs and grasses. I don't know what took us so long to figure that out!

Our land is quite interesting and diverse, though only 5 acres it has many different ecosystems. We have an oak-hickory 'savanna' also known as our 'yard' (really just the area where we mow, I don't think a single blade of turfgrass lives there) where the builder of the house left all the large trees (at least they did something right!), what we call our sycamore grove (mixed with black walnut and american elm, ironweed and swamp milkweed in another sinkhole which is seasonally wet, early succession woods with eastern redcedar, persimmon, tuliptree, mulberry, beech, and dogwood, old field with goldenrods and asters, partridge pea, butterflyweed, mountain mint, broomsedge, panicgrass etc. and is dotted with eastern redcedar, hickory, dogwood and oaks and edged in sweetgum, sumac, carolina buckthorn, sassafrass, etc.

So I'm trying to repair, restore, and reinstate natives to my landscape, and I've got a good start already. The two areas of field we have are managed differently. The 'back 40' we bushhog once a year, usually in late July or early August to control the woodies, but this year we didn't at all due to the drought. It will be interesting to see what appears next year. We do mow paths through it though for access. This is where some prairie plants appear, like butterflyweed and mountain mint. There is always something interesting to see on a walk through this part of the field. I always sulk when the bushhog comes through and cuts it all down. Sometimes I leave the upper slope alone, that's where a large stand of mountain mint grows and thousands of butterflies thank me! The front field, the part which is visible from the house, is mowed about once a month so weeds aren't allowed to go to seed. It's more like an extension of the 'yard' but really is just mowed field. Eventually I'd like to convert some of this into a prairie planting.

Here are some photos, thanks for responding!

"The Big Ugly" sinkhole after cutting and some burning, that's a sycamore "sapling" in the foreground which has grown about 6 feet in a year!

The mowed field, upslope from the Big Ugly

The "Back 40" old field looking downslope through dogwoods toward the sycamore grove

The main reason I would wait until next spring to apply the herbicide is because its most effective when the plants are actively growing. As we head into winter, the plants are dormant and round up won't work at all...

If the land hasn't had significant disturbance, sometimes once you get control over the invasives, the natives will come back on their own without seeding. The native seed bank may be present, but its dormant, because it can't outcompete all the aggressive invasives. I frequently recommend one continue working on eliminating the invasive and monitor the site for at least three growing seasons before planting anything. You may be surprised.

Of course if the history of the area includes heavy disturbance, ie mining or agriculture... then I would go ahead and just seed.

Your pictures look like a nice area.

Thanks for posting the pictures! I don't really have any advice, but I do want to say that it looks like a very nice spot you have there. You can tell alot of work has gone into cleaning up the landscape and it sounds like you are starting to see the results of your hard work.

Are you done cutting trees? Opening up the area some might be nice, but it would be a shame to cut any of the dogwoods. They're such good wildlife trees.

We are keeping the dogwoods, we love them, and so do the birds! I haven't counted them all but there must be over a hundred of them scattered in the field (our "dogwood savanna") and at the edges of the woodland. Mostly what we have removed are eastern redcedar and some tall spindly young trees, some ash and mulberry and winged elm mostly and a few young tuliptrees (they are dominant where we are working). We are trying to remove the weaker trees that were engulfed by vines so much so that the trunks were contorted, or crowded out by more mature trees. We have preserved the mature oaks, beech (my favorite!), hickory, tuliptree (most of them), and dogwoods. The wooded area was neglected so long that it really needed thinning and cleaning up. In some cases we had to choose between cutting a small oak or a mature dogwood that grew too close to it. In those cases the oak won out. We know we'll never get to see that white oak become the glorious specimen as pictured below (on our neighbor's side of the drive!) but we are looking at the long term benefits.

Great White Oak

Along the lines of Joepye...

A good book to read is 'Miracle under the Oaks' http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Under-Oaks-Revival-America/dp/067178045X .

Let me draw out the point I would like you to get after reading the book. If you start to manage it like the particular native ecosystem thrives on, you will find all kinda of things that will pop up.

The above statement isnt so much true for plowed fields but forested and unplowed fields may have looked very different 100 years ago and likely still hold those genetics waiting to be managed back into existence. Part of your job is to understand the area in which you live in; the soils, the flora and fauna, the ecosystem management... and part of your job is to actually resume the management style the natives want, and part of your job is to manage the sunlight (a prairie, a savanna, a forest???) .

By the way... let me state the (kinda) opposite of the above. One cannot force a prairie where prairie does not belong. Either by soils or by sunlight or by climate or by lack of fire/other woody management or...

I guess what Im saying is that the land has memory. Dont try to confuse it but learn to listen to that memory.

Froggy

Thank you all, I appreciate all the input.

I will check out 'Miracle under the Oaks' froggy - I'm already creating quite a "wish list" at Amazon, hopefully some of my loved ones will get me a few.

I understand that the land has "memory" - I've been listening to that memory all my life. I'm not trying to confuse it at all, I'm just here to steward the land that happens to be under my care at this point in time. I've lived in so many places, and always tried to leave them better than when I found them. This particular area on our land was used as a garbage dump by the previous owners, as so many sinkholes in this part of the country are. We've hauled out construction debris, household items, you name it - even chunks of asphalt! I think you might consider this areas as - "disturbed"!!!

But not all the area I'm concerned with is is the "pit" - some is upslope and does have some natives associated with it. When an abandoned field that reverts to first succession woods happens here, we get many invasives. Our goal is to remove those invasives and encourage natives. This acreage has not been managed in at least 50 years when it was probably all pasture land. The slopes we have in this particular karst topography was too steep to support agricultural crops. One of the surprising and wonderful discoveries we have had is finding that the soils at the bottom of our sinkhole is deep fertile loam! I suppose all of the organic matter found its way downslope from the dry hills above it.

So to speak to the idea of managing what was there 100 years ago, that has long been altered through farming, land development, idiots dumping garbage - you get my drift. So we are almost in a state of "reclamation". A reclamation of the land, of what once was.

Now there are other areas on this land that are more pristine (a relative term indeed!), and will probably benefit from your management philosophy. We strive to do so as I said before. We will never alter a site to fit what we want it to be. How crazy would that be?

"We will never alter a site to fit what we want it to be. How crazy would that be?"

There are a lot of crazy people out there doing just that...what comes to mind is people in Las Vegas growing a turf grass lawn. ;-)

Have you read Noah's Garden by Sara Stein? If not, make sure you add that one to your Amazon wish list too.

Your pictures look great. I would label your area as "partially disturbed". Sometimes pasture land is just as disturbed as crop land...

Thank you joepyeweed - I know that there are levels of crazy - and that it all depends on your point of view ;-)

I could go on and on about the ethical issues of planting natives, but really what good would it do? Everyone has their own rules, their own aesthetic. And as independent Americans each and every one of us has a right to demonstrate our preferences whatever they may be. In fact, I kinda like plastic flamingos and concrete flowerbaskets and whirligigs. You might say I am a lover of cultural landscapes. Wow. I feel so free now that I have admitted that.

And now, a moment to reflect on that statement. . . .

Partially disturbed, hmmm..... I guess that does describe me as well as my landscape.

Seriously, Noah's Garden is going on my Amazon wish list - I've seen it referenced so many times on these forums I'm sure it will be a great read. I keep adding and adding, and learning and learning.

Life is good!

If you manage it like a prairie, even without re-seeding, eventually prairie plants will find their way there.

If you never manage it like a prairie, even with re-seeding, eventually there will be no prairie plants.

I find the same goes for other ecosystems.

For the FWIW pile...

Froggy

OK, I think I get it froggy. I haven't read 'Miracle Under the Oaks' yet but i kind of get your drift. I think I see signs of it in our back field that is only bushhogged once a year. The last picture from my original post was taken in that field. There I see butterflyweed and partridge pea and mountain mint and other possible original remnants of what was once there. I know that the "Cedar Glades" and the "Big Barrens" are part of this area where I live and there are all sorts of prairie remnants in clearings between forested areas. Knowing the history has sparked my interest in restoring some of these areas in my small way.

So let me ask you, how would you manage the area I'm asking about, the sinkhole area that has been so abused and disturbed. It is not forested, though it may have been at one time, and it was probably never plowed, given the steepness of the hillsides and the fact that a sinkhole lies at the bottom of those hillsides. Historically sinkholes were left alone, or used as dumps. Our underground streams cause many sinkholes to just give way, and as farmers here know now as they did then, they can swallow up livestock. In fact there was a newspaper article last year about a horse that had to be rescued from someone's field when a sinkhole just opened up one day and the unlucky horse ended up at the bottom of it! So I'm thinking that there may in fact be native grasses and forbs that like our calcareous soils and are associated with sinkhole areas. I think Mammoth Cave has some info on that but I have not checked it out. I've also never been there, caves kind of creep me out!

Anyway, do you think our method of cutting and burning will help? One or the other? What about using Roundup in the early spring to get rid of the blackberry and poke? I did read an article about using Roundup early enough in the season to kill the cool season grasses yet not disturb the warm season grasses. I think timing was crucial in their findings. Their emphasis was on pastures but some info is still relevant. If you'd like, check out the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: converting pastures to tall grass prairies

How I got about it is to first get a historical flora of the area to tell me what the plant history is. I also include a soil history, Ill admit that Im blessed by being from Wisc and we can get free soil survey of all the counties. Then we need to determine what is there now and the invasives that will easily move in. Lastly, cant fight the hydrology (without heavy equipment) and we need to follow the erosion.

After taking all the above in, we need to decide how we are going to manage what type of ecosystem. If you want a thick forest, you have to plant a thick forest and manage it like a thick forest. If you want a savanna, make some decisions on light and tree selections and go from there. Savanna is definately a fire determinate ecosystem so management is easy, burn.

After all of this, we can come up with 3 lists, The good, the bad and the planted. The good is the master list of everything you can tolerate. The bad are the ones you cant. And the planted is your list and plan to plant. This list needs to be living.

Once we have all the above info and decisions, its time to get to work... cutting, weedwacking, chemicalizing, burnings, covering, seeding, etc...

Froggy

The sequel to "Noah's Garden" is called "Planting Noah's Garden" and is also quite good and includes a lot of how to advice. Read both. I actually met the author once. Unfortunately, she has since passed away but she managed to leave us with some inspiring and practical books.