Gala

Mrs. Laura W. Bush

Friend of the Prairie

So many Americans admire Mrs. Laura W. Bush as a champion of literacy and education, as well as women’s rights and healthcare programs for women.  Perhaps fewer know of her efforts on behalf of our state and nation’s natural treasures.

Mrs. Bush, a long-time supporter of the Wildflower Center and a dear friend of Lady Bird Johnson will be guest of honor at the Wildflower Center Gala May 13, 2011.

As the Honorary Chair of the National Park Foundation, Mrs. Bush launched the First Bloom program in 2007.  First Bloom helped city kids discover and explore the national parks in their backyard and the outdoor spaces in their communities through the science of native plants. For two years, the Wildflower Center trained selected staff from the Boys and Girls Clubs and the National Park Service in native plant gardening for First Bloom. Those trainees helped children undertake projects in National Parks, including the LBJ National Historical Park and San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, as well as urban neighborhoods.

When she spoke to some of the First Bloom children in Dallas in 2008, Mrs. Bush said, “I hope you learn to love our native land, just like Lady Bird Johnson did.”

Mrs. Bush’s love for her native land is apparent in the prairie restoration the Bushes have undertaken at their Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford and the now-under-construction George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas.

Once predominant in much of Texas and the Midwest, tallgrass prairie now is the most endangered large ecosystem in North America, and less that 1 percent of Texas’ tallgrass prairie remains.  These beautiful areas also provide habitat for grassland birds.  Prairie restoration not only increases habitat, it protects vulnerable native plant communities.

In an article she wrote for Fox News in 2008 after a video tour of the ranch, Mrs. Bush said:  “About a century ago, our ranch would have been rolling Central Texas prairie. Over the years, however, farming practices altered the landscape, introducing non-native grasses. Since President Bush and I moved to the ranch in 2000, a native grass expert has helped us return some of our land to wild prairie. To eradicate the non-native plants, we've plowed, and plowed — and any time non-native sprouts come up, we plow again.”

Before planting native seeds from an intact prairie, prescribed burning was used on some of the ranch land to control the non-natives. Now the ranch contains sideoats grama (the state grass of Texas), little bluestem, Indian grass, switchgrass, buffalo grass and native wildflowers.  In that same article, Mrs. Bush pointed out that the Wildflower Center’s Native Plant Information Network is a prime resource for native plant restoration. 

The Wildflower Center is consultant on plant selection for the prairie restoration at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the Southern Methodist University Campus.  Center environmental designers are also testing a combination of native grasses to be used in lawn areas.

Laura Solano, a principal in Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc., the landscape architect for the Bush Presidential Center, told Wildflower magazine recently that “The focus on native plants came easily because President Bush and the former first lady value native landscapes.”

And the Wildflower Center values and appreciates Mrs. Bush’s efforts on behalf of nature and native plants.