Public Wildflower Plantings

Each year government and private groups plant wildflowers near highways and in commercial landscapes. This landscape concept for public spaces gains momentum each year.

My recent article Poppies and Landscape Design: Annual poppies bring effervescence to government and commercial wildflower plantings discusses three things important to me:

• annual poppies in wildflower seed mixes;
• roadside beautification with wildflower plantings; and
• cooperation and participation among community, business and government organizations.

Techniques involved in planting wildflower plots, patches, strips and meadows are located in my earlier article:

Romantic or Realist - Establishing a Wildflower Lawn or Meadow.

The concept of using wildflowers, especially those of prairie and grasslands, in beds and borders spreads each year. Momentum for making this landscape concept work in public places has increased since the 1960s when former American First Lady Ladybird Johnson began city and highway beautification campaigns. In 1982, Mrs. Johnson and actress friend Helen Hayes established The National Wildflower Research Center in Texas.

Now, scores of organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth are active in highway and roadside beautification projects, and business-related designs.

Here is a small sample of groups using the wildflower beautification concept:

• The Illinois program spearheaded by First Lady Patricia Blagojevich;
• The California DOT project;
• The State of Alabama's collaboration with Auburn University;
• North Carolina State University's research projects;
• North Carolina DOT projects";
• The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) collaboration with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center;
• The Highweald Wildflower Initiative, a British public-private partnership, working to recreate wildflower grasslands in the weald; and
• The decision of Irish Shell to expand their "Wildflower Initiative" to education in schools in 1999.

If you know of a successful large-scale government or commercial wildflower project, please send an e-mail to me at landscaping@suite101.com. Please include pertinent facts about the project, contact information, and of course, your name.

©

Georgene A. Bramlage, July 10, 2006. Reproduction without permission prohibited.