Spring Peeper Meadow at the Landscape Arboretum

 In 2007 Spring Peeper Meadow celebrated 10 years of restoration. The underground tiles that had drained the meadow for decades were broken in October 1996, allowing water to remain on the land that had supported agriculture for so many years. Spring Peeper Meadow resumed its history as a sedge meadow with the restoration of its plant community and its first growing season beginning in April 1997. That spring, the seeds of 115 different native wildflowers, grasses, and sedges began to germinate in the saturated soil. It seems that land that was not so long ago a corn field is exceptionally rich just 10 short years later. The first 10 years of the restoration were dramatic as the plant community established and wildlife returned to the meadow. The patterned rows of corn had finally given way to irregular patches of lake sedge and a seasonally changing palette of wildflowers blooming in bright clumps and colorful bands around the perimeter of the meadow.