The name “Eden Prairie” evokes paradise, but one with prairie. There’s no sense in looking for the Garden of Eden here, but what about prairie? Is there prairie still to be found in Eden Prairie?
The answer is absolutely “yes.”
Eden Prairie has several examples of native or remnant prairie. The 55-acre Prairie Bluff Conservation Area overlooking the Minnesota River is the crown jewel, but there’s also a small, installed prairie near the Staring Lake Outdoor Center.
They are distinctly different from each other but valuable and rare nonetheless. After all, prairie habitat once covered one-third of Minnesota, according to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), but little more than 1% of this habitat remains today.
In that sense, to have prairie in a fully developed metro-area suburb like Eden Prairie is “extremely unusual,” says Karli Wittner, forestry and natural resources supervisor for the City of Eden Prairie.
But, keeping our prairies healthy is costly, challenging, and time-consuming, and no one knows how they’ll fare in future years. So, for now, enjoy these rare examples of what used to exist on a grand scale. Here’s how you can best enjoy these mostly treeless grasslands in Eden Prairie:
Prairie Bluff Conservation Area
Its history: You might say the Prairie Bluff Conservation Area overlooking the Minnesota River above Flying Cloud Drive, east of Spring Road, is a “grass-roots” conservation effort because this sea of prairie grasses was acquired with residents’ overwhelming support of a park bond referendum in 1994.
The vote of 2,071 to 366 approved the city’s $1.95 million purchase of this 55-acre piece and several other areas to preserve and maintain them as open space.
How to access it: This sloping area is best accessed from a six-stall parking lot at 10092 Indigo Drive, in the Hennepin Village neighborhood east of Spring Road. While southbound on Spring Road, take a left on Charlson Road, a right on Pincherry Lane, then a left on Indigo Drive. Look for the Prairie Bluff Conservation Area monument, then walk the trail that borders the conservation area’s north side. The views are spectacular.
What you’ll find: Five grasses that are indicators of a tallgrass prairie “are definitely here,” Wittner says: big bluestem, which is also called turkey foot, and has purple flowers/seed heads; Indian grass, which looks like big bluestem but has an elongated seed head, with a little more of an orange tint to it; switchgrass, which has almost like a fireworks-type seed head; little bluestem, which only grows about a foot high, with a blue/purple tint and little, hairy seeds; and lastly side oats grama, small and cute with seeds only on one side.
The grasses, unique to a Midwest prairie, will vary from 1 foot high to 8 feet high. Watch them sway in the wind, and you’ll be transformed.
Colorful prairie wildflowers can also be found if your timing is right, including coneflowers and butterfly weed.
Why it’s special: As a remnant prairie it goes way back, “as far back as people can remember,” says Wittner. It’s special because Eden Prairie residents voted to preserve it, and neighbors on Indigo Drive keep a watchful eye on it.
“The people that live right by this prairie bluff are absolutely the guardians of Prairie Bluff,” says Wittner. “They love it. The people that live here are definitely very passionate about it.
“I think that there’s a good balance,” she added about the idea of having homes adjacent to valuable and sensitive open space, separated only by a fence. “In an ideal world, maybe, yeah, we would have restored this upper part to be prairie, too. But we have to, especially in a city and metropolitan area, balance conserving with meeting the needs of people, too. And I think this is a really good balance of that. It ended up attracting people who are really passionate about Prairie Bluff and its protection.”
Staring Lake Outdoor Center Prairie
Its history: This 1.5-acre prairie along the driveway to the Staring Lake Outdoor Center is a demonstration prairie, built where houses used to stand, so not with ideal soils for a prairie. It was installed in 1990 to complement the nature center after a student conservation club at Eden Prairie High School began asking where to find prairie in Eden Prairie.
“It was, ‘Well, we don’t have any, so let’s install one,’” recalls Stan Tekiela, a naturalist and the nature center’s supervisor.
How to access it: The city’s Staring Lake Outdoor Center is at 13765 Staring Lake Parkway, on the north side of Staring Lake. You’ll pass the demonstration prairie upon entering the driveway. Park in the nature center’s lot and walk the short distance to the prairie, which has mowed trails to follow.
What you’ll find: A variety of prairie grasses and wildflowers. “This is Indian grass; these are tall grasses,” Tekiela says while walking the demonstration prairie. “So, when we burn this, the very next year, the grasses are like over my head and thick as thieves in here. It’s really nice. Every year after that burn, there’s fewer and fewer of the grasses until it gets to a point where there’s not a lot of grasses growing and everything is fairly short, and then we’ll burn again and boom! All the grasses come back.”
Prairie clover, prairie bush clover, purple prairie clover, butterfly weed – these are all colorful prairie plants that can also be found at the site, depending on the season.
Why it’s special: The demonstration prairie dovetails nicely with Tekiela’s overall environment education program at the nature center, which draws nearly 500 youth to summer camps and more than 2,000 students during the school year.
“They learn about prairie, because after all this is Eden Prairie,” Tekiela says. “And this prairie was installed very specifically to answer the question, ‘Where’s the prairie in Eden Prairie?’”
Can we keep the prairie?
Eden Prairie, over its history, has lost prairie to grazing, tilling, and suburban development.
What’s left are these city pieces and some small, privately-owned, restored prairies.
The city’s Wittner and Tekiela say that protecting and maintaining these prairie examples, as well as pieces of remnant prairie at the Richard T. Anderson Conservation Area, depends on three main efforts:
- Using controlled fire every few years to rejuvenate the prairie grasses;
- Keeping non-native invasive plant species and encroaching woodlands at bay; and
- Controlling public access to protect the areas from erosion and other damage.
A controlled burning of prairie grasses every few years may sound counterintuitive, but over time it’s been the best tool to keep a prairie healthy. Wittner says there is a popular misconception that, prior to European settlement, all of these prairie burns were nature induced.
“Prairie fires will get started by lightning; that does occur,” she says. “But what was more common is that the indigenous tribes – Dakota people and their ancestors, the Ojibwe, and Anishinaabe – were the ones starting the fires in the prairies. Because if you started the prairies on fire, and all that good green stuff would come up, then the bison would come and make it better for hunting.”
The science is pretty clear: “Burning is big; important because it does a number of things,” says Tekiela. “One, it takes all the dead plant material – there’s a lot of carbon locked up in here – and it turns it to ash, with all those nutrients going back into the soil to feed the newly growing plants. The second thing it does is it blackens the ground. And these prairie plants are warm-season plants. Weedy things, like the (invasives) crown vetch and leafy spurge, are cool-season plants, so those get a head start. But when we burn, it blackens the soil, which allows the sun to warm up the soil faster than it would normally be, which then triggers the growth of those prairie plants to outcompete the non-natives that need cool season.
“We burn, and a week later it’s green and lush,” he adds. “Two weeks later you couldn’t even tell there’s a burn. It’s ridiculous how fast it responds. It goes like crazy.”
Spot-spraying is needed between burns to control the fast-growing, non-native, invasive plant species.
Prairie-grass seeds are routinely collected and redistributed to keep the prairie thick and lush.
And finally, there are the battles to keep people on the trails and off the prairie so erosion and other human damage is minimized. That’s especially important at the Prairie Bluff Conservation Area, where prairie grasses help hold the highly erosive, sugar-like soil in place.
These are battles worth fighting, says Tekiela.
“Less than 1% of all prairies remain today. And so we’re just trying to show what it used to look like,” he says. “A place for native plants, because the native plants have attracted native insects and native insects give you a healthy environment. We’re not mowing it, so that’s important. It provides a good home for insects. And then birds feed here; a lot of animals. It’s the whole web of life.
“The take-away is really, ‘This is a prairie. If you live in Eden Prairie, you should know what it is.’”
(Do you own a large parcel of land that might be turned into prairie? The Minnesota DNR has a “Prairie Restoration Handbook for Minnesota Landowners” that provides guidance. If you are looking for help from a private company, Prairie Restorations, Inc. is among the businesses that have done work in Eden Prairie.)
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