Submitted by Amy Alstad, director of land management and environmental education
This Wednesday, a group of 30 volunteers and coworkers gathered to plant the newly-cleared oak savanna. Thanks to many helping hands, the task of planting 1.5 acres went quickly and was infused with a lot of joy and celebration.
The work of the past three months has involved cutting, treating, hauling and burning a huge volume of buckthorn, honeysuckle and other invasive shrubs to restore the open, sunlit structure of a true oak savanna. Once cleared, the space was ready to receive the seed mix made up of 70+ species of flowers, grasses and sedges.
This part of the Monastery grounds, located just west of the main driveway, is notable for the many layers of stories it tells of human relationship to land. Effigy mounds built by Ho-Chunk ancestors are found in close proximity to a Military Road, which runs alongside stones cleared from agricultural fields by early colonist farmers. With the savanna restoration project, we are writing a new chapter in this ongoing story of place and people. The new chapter is guided by the sisters’ long-range management plan, which calls for restoring prairie, oak savanna and oak woodlands with the ultimate aim of creating a place where all people can experience nourishment from the dynamic beauty and mystery of creation.
We gratefully acknowledge support from Dane County Parks for donating the native seed mix and MG&E for the grant funding which allowed us to hire Emma Kloes to lead this restoration project.