Grassland Heritage Foundation preserves prairies in eastern Kansas through education, stewardship, and land protection.
Tallgrass Prairie Facts
Prairie arose in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains, and once covered 400 million acres over the center of the U.S. from Saskatchewan to Texas. Prairies are diverse communities dominated by grasses and wildflowers.
Tallgrass prairie, with three-fourths of its biomass
underground, created some of the most productive
soils in the world. Prairie thrives amid drought, fire,
and grazing due to root systems up to 15 feet deep.
Only 1% of the native tallgrass prairie remains today due to fire suppression and intensive crop production, making it a globally endangered ecosystem. Remaining prairies now include the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma and small remnant prairies, such as The Prairie Center in Olathe, Kansas and GHF's Snyder Prairie, Leadplant Prairie, and Roulund-Wagner Prairie.
Only 1% of the native tallgrass prairie remains today. . .
News
Visit The Raven Book Store in Lawrence to browse GHF-curated native plant gardening books
Helen Alexander and Randy Rasa join the GHF board, and welcome Kaitlyn Ammerlaan as GHF's Program Director and Preserve Manager!
Join a community of prairie protectors
You can directly support prairie land management, land protection, and education in northeast Kansas as a GHF member and donor.
GHF provides hands-on prairie restoration opportunities, academic scholarships, and workshops on prairie management, native plant gardening, and prairie ecology.
Members receive the GHF newsletter, discounts on fee workshops, discounts at GHF's annual native plant sale, and workshop & event notifications.
What you can do to protect prairie
Visit and enjoy prairies with friends.
Add native plants to your garden. They are needed by native pollinating insects, they reduce erosion, and they use less water.
Apply for a scholarship to advance our understanding of prairie ecology and restoration.
Encourage your city, county, and state to include prairie remnants and native plants in park and landscaping plans.
Keep exotic invasive plants out of your yard, parks and plant nurseries.
Events
GHF Native Plant Sale
Thanks, everyone, for a great spring native plant sale! This year, to ensure safety, all sales were pre-order only. Thanks to healthy interest in native plants, pickups in Topeka, Lawrence, and Johnson County, and the popularity of Garden-to-Go kits, we can consider this year's sale a success! We look forward to offering more events and native plant sales soon, when we can safely do so.
GHF's Core Values
• Prairies are fundamental elements of our ecological, cultural, and economic heritage.
• As unique reservoirs of biological diversity and providers of ecological services, prairies must be maintained for future generations.
• Our understanding of the ecology of prairies and the formulation of management practices that maintain their health must be science-driven.
• Education affords people of all ages the opportunity to learn about and better appreciate the diverse benefits of prairies.
• Children and adults derive emotional, creative, and intellectual benefits from visiting and learning about prairies.
• Volunteers and citizen scientists are essential in promoting and implementing the mission of Grassland Heritage Foundation.
Contact Grassland Heritage Foundation
PO Box 394
Shawnee Mission, Kansas 66201
Send us a message