new Wetmeadow.org website

Hi all, we've added https://www.wetmeadow.org/ as the new place for updates on the Children's Wet Meadow. :) 

2019 prescribed burn - Tuesday 3/26/19 at 4:00 PM

It's one of our earliest burn dates ever! Please join us Tuesday for this safe, free, kid-friendly event.

2018 Burn on April 9 at 4PM

The 2018 edition of the annual burn will be on April 9 at 4 PM, weather permitting.

Join us for seed collecting at 4PM, followed by the burn at 4:30PM.

Trained staff and volunteer from City of Ann Arbor Natural Area Preservation will explain the purpose of the burn and safety equipment and procedures.

Once the burn is safely complete, you can help re-distribute the seeds in the wet meadow.

Work Bee Monday June 26, 2017 6:30-8:00 PM

Come join neighbors and friends for a quick hour and a half of work to improve Buhr Park.

Meet us...

• Buhr Park Children's Wet Meadow work bee on Monday June 26 from 6:30 - 8:00 PM
• Meet at the playground near the tennis courts

Work to be done:

• Clean up the path to the bench
• Pull woody plants from the graduate grove and palace of nature
• Learn what the graduate grove and palace of nature are
• Remove invasive thistle from wet meadow 3 (time permitting)
• Sit on the bench and enjoy a moment of peace

The lupines are coming, the lupines are comng!

Lupines are one of my favorite native plants. The blossoms are a delicate purple color. And they attract many butterflies, bees and other pollinators.

I'm delighted that lupines are blooming in two places in Buhr park. One is the sand prairie in the upper (north) basin of WM II, on the west side of the park behind the swimming pool.

The other is in the original Wet Meadow, at the base of the sledding hill, on the east side of the park.

Here are a few shots of pollinators in action!

Tickle Bees at Buhr - April 2017

This was a good year for tickle bees at Buhr. These bees nest in the ground, in the upper basin behind the swimming pool. We call them tickle bees because they are harmless to humans. The ones we see on sunny days in April are males, cruising at about 12 inches above the ground, looking for partners.Fun fact: male bees have no stingers.

Here's some info from a school in Oregon:
     http://www.sabinpta.com/tickle-bee

Our tickle bees are probably in the genus, Colletes.They are also called, "cellophane bees" since they line their nests with a cellophane-like substance.

2017 prescribed burn excites children and adults

The prescribed ecological burn on April 10, 2017 was an exciting event for children and adults. Trained staff and volunteer from City of Ann Arbor Natural Area Preservation explained the purpose of the burn and described safety eqiptment and procedures. Since the wind was coming from the south, they started the burn at the northern edge. Here's what it looked like when the flames were closer to the viewers.

A few moments after this picture, we started to feel raindrops! So this is the first burn on record where it rained at the end of the burn. Kids and parents went home, so we'll plant seeds sometime later this week.