by Lara Roketenetz, Natural Resources Specialist
Most of us start complaining about mowing, watering, and fertilizing our lawns as soon as the warm spring rains appear. And while a trimmed green carpet certainly can look quite lush, it doesn't provide much of a wildlife benefit for the creatures that inhabit northeastern Ohio, unless you count the "wild" neighborhood children playing a game of touch football or tag.
Why not plant a truly wild habitat – a prairie – instead? Prairies are not just unkempt yards! Imagine instead a sea of waving grasses and glorious flowers that transforms itself each season from a colorful haven for birds and butterflies to a golden seed-filled area protected from the winter winds. Even better, prairie areas become almost self-sustaining once established, allowing you to cut back on pesticides, fertilizers, and watering!
Instead of spending all spring, summer, and fall maintaining a manicured lawn, you could be sitting back, relaxing, and enjoying the species that visit the backyard habitat you created. As a shining example of how this can be accomplished for area residents, the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes has begun creating a small prairie along West Park Boulevard. The prairie will function as a unique environmental niche for many species and will provide a unique learning component for our community outreach and education programs.
Prairies are beautiful and complex communities of perennial grasses and
wildflowers that provide suitable habitats for many beneficial species.
Prairies are immediately intriguing – they are filled with rich
texture, color, and a myriad of plant, animal and insect species. The
plant species that thrive in a prairie have the distinct
characteristic of having deep root systems, which help to stabilize
erosion-prone areas and prevent sedimentation runoff to the Doan Brook.
Prairies are also one of Ohio's rarest ecosystems; a significant number throughout the state were destroyed by agriculture and development or have succumbed to shrub / forest succession due to the disruption of normal ecological processes such as grazing and prairie fires. We feel that encouraging this type of ecosystem will add to the diversity of habitat communities represented at the Nature Center, further increasing our ability to serve as an outdoor classroom.
What can you expect to see during this process? The prairie consists of a 25-foot by 130-foot (3,250 square foot) area located north of Shaker Boulevard and east of West Park Boulevard. The size constraints still allow for use of the area closest to the roads for pedestrian travel. This location is ideal for a prairie based on its southwest orientation and amount of direct sunlight that it receives. We began land preparation in spring of 2006, and hopefully by summer of 2007 we can expect to see big and little bluestem, black-eyed susan, purple coneflower, switchgrass, blazing star, butterfly milkweed, sneezeweed, goldenrods, asters, and many more brilliantly colored grasses and forbs.
Additionally, be prepared to get up close and personal with an area teeming with life. You might catch glimpses of unique wildlife including monarch butterflies, silver-spotted skippers, dragonflies, damselflies, red foxes, eastern cottontails, garter snakes, larks, American kestrels, and red-tailed hawks – the list goes on and on! We even anticipate that the prairie will be certified as a "Monarch Waystation" – a place for these majestic butterflies to rest and refuel with nutritious nectar on their fall migratory trip from Canada to Mexico.
The development of the prairie habitat is incremental and will take place over a successive variety of seasons, with appropriate interpretative signage to allow citizens of neighboring communities to monitor its progress throughout each phase. Once established, the prairie will be relatively maintenance-free and can be used as a unique educational and research tool. It is our goal that this area will become a source of pride for the surrounding communities who contribute to its creation, as well as a viable habitat for prairie grasses, wildflowers and all those insects and animals that rely on this specific type of habitat. Furthermore, the educational opportunity that this area will present will be a tremendous asset to the programming that the Nature Center can offer the community. And because having a prairie reduces the amount of time, gas, water, fertilizers, and herbicides that would normally be utilized on the upkeep of a grassy field, the Nature Center can further instill the sustainable concepts of saving resources and reducing environmental waste.
If you would like to participate in the creation or monitoring of the prairie or would like information on creating your own backyard habitat, please contact me at (216) 321-5935 x 240 or roketenetz@shakerlakes.org. Remember, it takes patience to create a prairie, but the rewards will be priceless!
