Environmental concerns have made native plants and prairies popular in this corner of Ohio, though many people still think of a milkweed or trillium flowers as unwanted weeds.

When the Toledo Zoo installed prairie plants in the median along the Anthony Wayne Trail, people complained, said Ryan Walsh, executive director of the zoo’s wild prairie initiative that began about six years ago.

With a little education, some signage and a few showy flowers here and there, Mr. Walsh said the complaints have stopped.

The flowers worked, but programs like the Toledo Zoo’s Wild Prairie Initiative and the Nature Conservancy and other local conservation groups, like the Wild Ones, are beginning to change that “weeds” connotation throughout the region.

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Cindy Carnicom, horticulturist at Olander Park, said she’s happy about the added awareness and efforts to change some of people’s preconceived notions.

“Many people feel the height of prairie plants does not fit in their scope of knowledge when they are used to non-native annuals, bulbs, and perennials that are much smaller and showier.” she said by email.

In other words, we’re used to neatly trimmed hedges and shrubs, perfect rose bushes. We work hard to keep our lawns green, mowed, and dandelion-free, and are on guard for unsightly weeds.

But a weed is a plant you don’t want to grow; one person’s weed might be another person’s flower.

And that perfectly green lawn is of no practical use other than a visual pleasure.

“Grass provides very little benefit other than our visual satisfaction, so these huge expanses of grass, they’re not really of any benefit,” Mr. Walsh said. “And you have to maintain it.”

When the zoo looked at the turf that had to be maintained and the money that was spent in doing so, it turned to bringing back native plants in a prairie setting.

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This corner of Ohio and over into Pennsylvania is a prairie, like Oklahoma in a sense, but one that gets more rain and less heat than in the Great Plains. Nonetheless, it’s still a grassland, said Michelle Grigore, an ecologist who has worked with the Toledo Botanical Garden, Bowling Green City Parks, and the Metroparks. She and her husband, John, have a five-acre plot across from Secor Metropark. They have turned three acres of it into a home for native plants and all of the wildlife that goes along with it.

In other words, they’re returning their land to its native state. Because as the Great Black Swamp was turned into rich farmland and exotic, or invasive plants were introduced, that original prairie, along with its native plants, started to vanish

Through initiatives like the zoo’s and others, and even the Grigore’s three-acre prairie or the beds at Olander Park, native plants are returning to their native roots, in more ways than one.

Through its blossoming program, the zoo has begun installing native gardens, a full-fledged prairie, and will do contracting for garden beds.

“We’ve done 40 acres of prairies, and we have seven new installations coming online,” Mr. Walsh said.

The zoo also began working with the Lucas County Land Bank to turn vacant lots into useful prairie and has installed plots at local schools.

“Our education department started project prairie, prairies at school sites, where schools use the prairies as living labs, so they can go out there and learn about pollinators” and much more,” Mr. Walsh said.

Restoring native plants to the area and turning land into tallgrass prairie areas have immense environmental benefits. Tallgrass means plants like bluestem, Canada wild rye, and Indian grass which can grow up to 9 feet tall.

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, native plants are good for wildlife, especially pollinators, such as birds and butterflies.

“The pollinator decline is affecting everything. We need to have pollinators everywhere, in suburban and urban areas,” Mr. Walsh said.

Because of the rigid and deep root system, they are great for erosion control, they filter storm water, and they reduce nutrient loads.

“They have tremendous roots that allow them to get deep in clay or sand and reach the water table in our area,” Ms. Cardicom said by email. “The roots can get up to three times the height of the plant. For, example a 5 foot plant will have 15 feet of roots.”

The Grigores said there is some maintenance involved, but it is much lower and therefore costs less.

“If you put in these natives, they’re already suited to the soil,” Ms. Grigore said. “There’s no watering, no deadheading.”

And the Grigores said it cuts down on time mowing their five acres, although they have mowed paths throughout the property for walking.

So while it’s always great to think big, it’s pretty good going small as well.

Cindy Carnicom has mixed native plants in with showier flowers in beds at Olander Park.

There’s nothing to prevent home gardeners doing the same thing, she said, except to get past some fears.

“People are also afraid of learning the difference between native and turf grass and often pull them out of their gardens,” Ms. Cardicom said.

“I believe once people learn to accept larger plant height and more color from multiple plants and it is OK if they fall over,” she said. “However, when these plants are planted with grasses that help give them the support they receive in natural systems, [people] would not be so disappointed. We are still working on lots of education in this area.”

That said, people still love that splash of color that define showy plants.

“Most of our native plants flower in the spring, then when the leaves come on the trees they stay green,” Ms. Grigore said.

Yet there’s plenty of color in the bright sunshine.

“The Jopai weeds like moisture and sun,” Ms. Grigore said. “And it has a head of purple flowers. Ironweed has deep, deep purple flowers.”

And if your garden doesn’t have a lot of sun, there are plenty of native grasses and plants that thrive in the shade.

Some plants to consider for sun or shade: cardinal flower, great blue lobelia, bee balm, purple bergamot, summer phlox, brown eyed Susan, wild Senna, blue-eyed grass symphyotrichum, New England Aster, Ohio Spiderwort, downy yellow violet, viola striata, and striped white violet.

When Michelle and John Grigore decided to landscape their property into a prairie, Ms. Grigore set off collecting seeds from along roadways, railroad tracks, and cemeteries.

She said it took her three years. Nearly 30 years later, she could have bought native plants ready to go into the ground.

‘We’ve always grown plants for our installations and started selling them at the Perrysburg farmers market,” Toledo Zoo’s Mr. Walsh said..

As awareness grows, there are more places to find native plans sprouting up all the time.

For those who think a garden must be planned out and perfectly sited, it can seem that a prairie with mish-mash of weedy looking plants and flowers has no plan, no rhyme or reason.

Even those who look out upon their blooming and busy prairies have questions.

Like the Grigores, who often are amazed at all the wildlife that has moved into their habitat, and the plants that have sprung up and thrived in sites that haven’t even been seeded.

Like the mound hill ants that have built their home in the Grigores’ property.

“It’s amazing that all these species have found our little prairie,” Ms. Grigore said.

How did they find their prairie?

Maybe nature has a plan after all.

First Published July 30, 2019, 12:28 a.m.