Large swath of restored tallgrass prairie mowed in Morton Grove, IL

On the western end of Morton Grove's Linne Woods is a restored tallgrass prairie, which I posted about in a March photo essay. During the construction of the Deep Tunnel project, which was built to divert storm water and sewage away from the Chicago River, Lake Michigan, and other nearby streams, this part of the forest preserve became a debris dump. Volunteers hauled out the trash and built, I guess that is the correct word, the prairie.

When I wrote my spring entry, my goal was to do follow up posts with pictures of beautiful flowers. That entry is coming, but I didn't count on roughly two-football fields of wildflowers and natural grasses being mowed--presumably by employees of the Cook County Forest Preserve District--to serve as my follow-up report.

Most of the prairie hasn't been mowed, but, hey, two football fields worth? Uh, why?

I ran through the prairie on June 30. Sometime between then and July 6 is when the plowing occurred.

The plowed area is on the northern end of the prairie. This picture was taken on June 30.

This is roughly the same patch on July 6. As you'll see in the next few pictures, a few strips of grass and wildflowers were bypassed.

The flowers in this sanctuary include butterfly weed, woodland sunflowers, and purple coneflowers.

The last sentence reads: "Please do not mow or disturb, but do enjoy its beauty."

Hey, at least the mower didn't knock down the sign. Oh well, good enough for government work.

Some pretty heavy equipment was deemed to be needed for the task. Hey, the mower made his mark, that's for certain.

These yellow coneflowers escaped. In my next post I'll focus on the rest of the prairie.

Linne Woods is part of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County.

Related post:

Morton Grove's restored tallgrass prairie, part one



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