Question re: native prairie (knowledge of high plains, please) (Denver: camping, disposal)

[DougStark]

Last week I was hauling a load of trash to the Denver-Arapahoe disposal facility (DADS) off Gun Club Rd. and Hampden Ave., Aurora. I noticed something odd about the surrounding undeveloped acres and acres of land in that area. The vegetation was totally brown. i don't mean on the dump grounds: I mean the thousands of acres surrounding that part of east Aurora. Not ONE SPECK of green as far as the eye could see. This got me to think, I may be viewing acres and acres of "disturbed" land--perhaps former virgin prairie that was once farmed and now left fallow, overrun by invasive weeds that have now died as a result of fall frost/freezes.

I suspect native prairie would have some green left in it, even though we'd have several killing frosts already this fall. Can someone confirm my suspicion that the acres and acres of brown land I saw are NOT native prairie land but likely just acres and acres of invasive weeds which had been frost-killed by the fall weather? Thanks. I want to believe the Colo. high plains are not this ugly in their virgin state.

[BarryK123]

Is Phoenix green, except for lawns and golf courses? Same reason. No precipitation (for at least a month).

[DougStark]

Barry, you're missing my point! My point is that I DON'T think I was looking at virgin high plains prairieland. I think I was looking at the invasive species, now dead from frost, brought about by former farmland.

For your information, our local desert looks greener than the thousands of acres of rolling prairie I saw east of Aurora on that fall day a week ago.

[SkyDog77]

In my experience, prairie goes pretty brown in the winter. Native or otherwise.

[xeric]

The dominant grasses in the undisturbed prairie are buffalo grass and blue grama. Both are warm season grasses which go into cold dormancy around here in early October. But in their native environments, they will already be brown from lack of precipitation by then. The green time is May and June.

[DougStark]

^^^ thanks, xeric. Your answer is the best I've gotten so far. But it doesn't answer my curiosity about whether the acres and acres I saw were once farmland (hence disturbed prairie) or native, undisturbed prairie.

I would guess that almost ALL of the open land on Aurora's eastern fringe was once either wheat fields, sunflowers, or some other dry-land farming operation. Therefore, I'll assume that I was looking at acres and acres of brown, dead invasive weeds and not native prairie grasses like buffalo or grama grasses.

If I had been in town longer, I would have visited the Plains Conservation Center in South Aurora. I'd be able to answer a lot of my own questions that way.

[Count David]

Wasn't that area part of the Lowry Range?

I always thought it was particularly ugly east of SE Aurora myself (JMO).

[davebarnes]

Well, the Pawnee National Grassland looks very brown at times.

and

[daprara]

yes likely was farm ranch land. Colorado is slow growth and dosnt take much abuse.

[DougStark]

Dave, your nice photos of the Pawnee National Grasslands actually look very attractive to me. What I saw on my trip down Gun Club Road didn't look anything like that.

I'm going to infer, based on all I know, that I was looking at acres and acres of disturbed, once-short grass prairie that is now filled with nothing but invasive species (weeds.) UGLY. That's the sad thing when farmers rip out native vegetation to grow their crops. And then, for various reasons, they no longer farm the land. The void gets filled by weeds and other unattractive invasive species.

Does anyone else fight an annual battle with field bindweed? It's rampant in east Aurora, growing over anything and everything. You can spot it in a field by its small white flowers. The stuff is not even native to the US. It's the epitome of an invasive species.