Oct. 21, 2026
In honor of 250 years since 1776, the Ohio Commission for the U.S. Semi quincentennial (America 250) has chosen a different theme each month to highlight and celebrate Ohio's rich history. To celebrate the month of October, Ohio Food & Farms, learn about The Dawes Arboretum’s newly restored Rolling Hills Meadow!
The Rolling Hills Meadow property was purchased by The Arboretum in 2014. It was a space historically used for row crop agriculture, a feature that made restoring the landscape unique.
Dawes has approximately 500 acres of land in agriculture and has enrolled in the Conservation Agriculture Use Value program (CAUV). With all agricultural properties, Dawes performs annual property assessments to ensure healthy and productive land. This includes soil, crops, erosion and siltation observations. Siltation is the accumulation of silt or fine sand, clay and other materials.
The property remained in agriculture until 2020. During that year's assessment, the conservation team noticed a lot of erosion, siltation and crop failure. Based off those results, The Arboretum’s team did soil sampling and found out that a lot of the soil was hydric soil, meaning it prefers wet environments.
Therefore, restoration began to use the soil's natural environment!
This was a two-phase restoration. Between 2020 and 2022, Dawes worked to convert the landscape to a prairie.
“To stabilize the topsoil of this area, we decided to convert it to a functional prairie,” said Emma Farmer, Ecosystems Manager at The Arboretum. “Prairie plants generally have deep root systems. They can go down 12 feet, which helps stabilize the soil.”
Another challenge that came with agricultural restoration was the seeds.
“One thing unique about this conversion is that there wasn’t an established seed bank,” said Farmer. “With agriculture, you have annual crops, meaning that they seed once and they’re done. We had the perfect slate to install a diverse prairie ecosystem. Today, it has over 180 species within it.”
In 2025, The Arboretum installed three wetland pools.
The benefits of a restoration project like this are visual, especially with its effects on wildlife. The seed heads of the plants provide food for grassland nesting birds and pollinators.
The wetlands within the landscape are also important for water containment. The pools have been crucial to capture water and prevent extreme flooding.
An exciting addition to the landscape is the recently installed trail system that goes around two of the wetland pools – so now Rolling Hills Meadow is accessible to visitors!
“The reason restoration is so important is not only for wildlife, but it’s also the representation of ecosystems,” said Farmer. “Prairies and wetlands are two ecosystems in Ohio that have seen extreme deduction. They’ve decreased by over 90% since pre-settlement. It’s important to save not only the wildlife, but the species that are saving it.”
The Arboretum’s Rolling Hills Meadow has 14 acres of prairie around its property, and about five of those acres are wetlands.
This project was completed in partnership with the Stream + Wetlands Foundation and Microsoft.