Sign explains history, purposes of World Peace Wetland Prairie

Please click on image to ENLARGE in order to read the sign.

This is reposted on this blog because someone asked about nonnative species planted on the half-acre entry area. Only the 2 acres to the west are devoted to native species. The front portion is an international garden open to "improved" native species and species from around the world, in keeping with the World Peace theme of the park.
The butterfly garden and the peace-circle garden are open to decorative species that bloom early in the season. At least 90 percent of the true natives on the back acreage do not bloom until late May or June. Some bloom for the first time later. Most native species fit the climate and stay dormant until their natural growing season is at hand. Some bloom deeper into fall than the nonnatives.
Most years, the native honeysuckle blooms early but the nonnative Japanese honeysuckle and the China honeysuckle bloom even earlier and go even later into early winter. That is one of the reasons they outcompete so many native species and are considered invasive and are being gradually irradicated.
Unfortunately, in the Northwest Arkansas climate, few species of any kind bloom in time for the annual celebration of Earth Day. The daffodils usually are gone by then and some tulips are past their peak, while the Irise reach a peak afterward. There are some native irises in an isolated thicket of World Peace Wetland Prairie. They have not yet bloomed! We may transplant a few to the front for people who don't visit the whole area to see. They were already growing there when the property became a park and they are among the special treasures. The rich, black soil and the native plant roots and seeds that were in the ground before white settlers came to the area in the early 19th century are the items that deserve the most protection on the WPWP.
The reason that extreme means have been avoided in the "restoration" process is that WPWP is a minute sample of functioning wildlife habitat with housing to its north and south. While most of the yards have the rich soil, as does the Pinnacle Foods, Inc., prairie to the west, the 30-acre development site to the north has had 99 percent of its soil replaced by nonorganic red dirt or mixed, clay and silty dirt and will never again support native plants.
Our WPWP sets of photos on the Flickr site are designed to provide a way for people to see what lives on a native prairie at different times of the year without having to compact the soil by walking the land repeatedly. And, by noting the date when a certain flower was in bloom or when box turtles were moving about to find nesting sites, a person can get an idea of when to visit WPWP and have a chance to spot a particular species.