This year marks the first bloom of Eagle Prairie at the Great Onyx Job Corps Center in Mammoth Cave National Park. Photo by Rick Olson.

Eagle Prairie, a 65-acre plot in the northwest corner of Mammoth Cave National Park and part of the Great Onyx Job Corps Center, has been converted from a haven for exotics to a prairie lush with native plants.

Just three years ago the land was thick with invasive exotic plants and trees, producing seeds that spread the unwanted growth. Today native plants exhibit a profuse bloom of black-eyed susans, purple coneflower, bergamot, and prairie coneflower.

“The fields were cleared when the new Job Corps facilities were built in 1982,” said superintendent Patrick Reed.“This space was not needed for classrooms or dorms, and the fields sprouted up with exotic plants such as multiflora rose, tree of heaven and white poplar.  It was like a nursery for exotic species.  As the park began to fight exotic plants, park staff came up with the idea of restoring this to prairie habitat, which existed in abundance prior to European settlement.”

Funding was gained through a competitive NPS grant program called the Cooperative Conservation Initiative, which required a 50 percent non-federal match.  Volunteers from Target Stores, Western Kentucky University interns, and Sierra Club supplied the match with hours of in-kind labor. 

The park contracted with Randy Seymour of Roundstone Seed Company, of Hart County, Kentucky, to prepare the land, provide native seed, and sow it.  In 2004, Seymour bulldozed the field and sprayed it to kill the exotic plants and trees, among them tree of heaven, Japanese honeysuckle, silver poplar, and multiflora rose.  In 2005, he planted a cover crop of rye, then 15 different native prairie forbs and six species of prairie grass.  Roundstone Seed specializes in locally collected and propagated native seed. Roundstone Seed also donated $10,000 worth of native seed for the project.

“2006 is the first year for Eagle Prairie to bloom,” said Reed. “The restoration is a beautiful solution to a pervasive problem.”

Contact Information
Name: Vickie Carson, Public Affairs Specialist