{"id":540,"date":"2015-05-31T13:07:15","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T13:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/sustainability\/?p=540"},"modified":"2015-05-31T13:07:15","modified_gmt":"2015-05-31T13:07:15","slug":"downtown-delawares-native-plantings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/?p=540","title":{"rendered":"Downtown Delaware’s Native Plantings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

From\u00a0The Columbus Dispatch \u2022 Sunday May 31, 2015 5:14 AM<\/em><\/p>\n

By Dean Narciso<\/p>\n

DELAWARE, Ohio \u2014 The vincas and petunias spill from baskets in many suburban downtowns. It\u2019s a beautiful floral explosion, but one that is expensive and unnatural in central Ohio, where those plants aren\u2019t native.<\/p>\n

Stroll through Delaware, and you\u2019ll find something different. Replacing the exotic and colorful splash of color are about 20 concrete planters filled with muted, earthy-looking, shrublike plants, each one an Ohio native.<\/p>\n

Liz Neroni came up with the idea while living in downtown Delaware, which went with petunias year after year.<\/p>\n

Neroni is a naturalist at Preservation Parks<\/a><\/strong>, Delaware County\u2019s park system. She envisioned the planters as tools for teaching, \u201cto have people realize natural plants are super important. They\u2019re supposed to be here. They\u2019re a huge part of the ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohio\u2019s birds, insects, bees and other pollinators evolved with native plants \u201clike they have a relationship together,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re beautiful and beneficial to the wildlife that live here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the small shrubs are bayberry, blackhaw viburnum and smooth hydrangea. Each has medicinal uses.<\/p>\n

And many of the plants are perennials, such as swamp milkweed, wild ginger and strawberry.<\/p>\n

The natives, which have adapted to Ohio weather, require less water and little if any fertilizer or pesticides, said Rich Niccum, education-services manager for Preservation Parks. \u201cOverall, (cities) don\u2019t need as much time to maintain them. It\u2019s a money-saving opportunity as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, they are a natural draw for birds and insects \u2014 helpful pollinators at a time when bee populations are in decline.<\/p>\n

Downtown passersby seem to take little notice of the change. And city leaders hope that silence indicates acceptance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expected to hear complaints about the lack of color because everyone is so used to us putting in petunias and sweet-potato vine, but no one has mentioned the change in a negative way,\u201d said Frances Jo Hamilton, executive director of Main Street Delaware<\/strong><\/a>, which oversaw the project.<\/p>\n

The plants, from local growers, cost about $1,200, Niccum said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have this mindset of native plants being weeds, that they\u2019re kind of unattractive and plain,\u201d said Neroni. \u201cThey don\u2019t think of natives when they\u2019re designing planters or decorating their yards. But we\u2019re trying to show people that they\u2019re wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

dnarciso@dispatch.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stroll through Delaware, and you\u2019ll find something different. Replacing the exotic and colorful splash of color are about 20 concrete planters filled with muted, earthy-looking, shrublike plants, each one an Ohio native.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-throughout-delaware"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":542,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}