Native Wisconsin prairie plants again grow on a small restored prairie at the Madison Christian Community. As part of our mission to care for our earth, this prairie preserves a part of the natural diversity that thrived before European settlers came to this part of southern Wisconsin. It provides cover for small mammals, insects, and birds that are losing their habitat as the west side of Madison develops.
Walking in this small prairie, we can experience the land as our ancestors did when they first saw this "sea of grass."
Maintaining the prairie since 1983 has been a cooperative effort by members of the Madison Christian Community. Some helped to hand- gather the seeds from remnant prairies along railroad tracks and from "goat prairies", hillsides too steep to cultivate. In the spring church members burn the prairie to stimulate native plants and control non-native species.
We are committed to providing a space for plants that have been in our land for thousands of years and which have developed unique ways of surviving the extremes of the Midwest: heat and drought in summer; wind and frigid temperatures in winter; and occasional fires that swept through in spring or fall.
Seasons of the Prairie
After the fire in the spring, the earliest plants we can find flowering on our prairie are the small prairie smoke, whose seed-heads of delicate pink and gray actually remind people of smoke.
As the sun heats the burned soil, the grasses and other flowers grow taller and overshadow the prairie smoke. In June, the baptisia with its tall stalks of white flowers stand our in the prairie. This is one of the native legumes, important for its nitrogen-fixing nodules in the soil. Other legumes bloom throughout the summer: bush clover and lespedeza.
The wildflowers are at their peak in the heat of the summer: yellow coneflower, purple coneflower, bergamot, and later goldenrod and asters. Throughout the summer the grasses remain green and continue to grow, sometimes over five feet tall. In spite of drought, they survive; their roots reach twelve feet into the ground. It is due to these grasses and their deep roots that we have such rich productive soil in the Midwest.
In the fall, the grasses change to a rich reddish gold color, a hue they keep all winter. Because they remain upright most of the winter, the grasses also provide a necessary cover for wildlife in the winter.
We invite you to walk the path in the prairie and experience this special place for yourself.