Iowa's County Roadsides

Planting Practical Vegetation

By Kirk Henderson
(319) 273-2813
Native Roadside Vegetation Center

It is declared to be in the general public welfare of Iowa and a highway purpose for the vegetation of Iowa’s roadsides to be preserved, planted, and maintained to be safe, visually interesting, ecologically integrated, and useful for many purposes.

That is the opening line of Section 314.22 of the Iowa code, legislation adopted in 1988 outlining the state’s Integrated Roadside Vegetation Management (IRVM) program. Since that time 40,000 acres along state highways and 20,000 acres along county roads have been planted to diverse mixes of Iowa’s native plant species.

The goal of these plantings is not so much prairie restoration as it is to use native plant species to serve a highway purpose. The plantings are showy at times and beautiful to those who know native plants. But they are equally appreciated for their great species diversity and the competitive plant community they create.

These plantings, with subtle hues reminiscent of our once great prairie landscape, lack the visual impact of pure stands of poppies or cosmos. On the other hand these long lived, deep rooted perennials thrive in our harsh climate, hold soil, trap snow and maximize infiltration of storm water runoff thereby endearing themselves to conservationists and engineers alike.

Each of Iowa’s ninety-nine little counties has a thousand miles of farm to market roads to maintain. That translates into four thousand acres of vegetated road right-of-way per county. In a sea of agriculture like Iowa, weed control, even along these back roads, is very important. So too is making the most of any land not devoted to row crops. To maximize IRVM’s success maintaining dual purpose roadsides, the Roadside Office (funded by Iowa DOT) at the University of Northern Iowa’s Native Roadside Vegetation Center, encourages each county to hire a Roadside Manager.

As vegetation specialist, the County Roadside Manager oversees roadside weed and brush control. The Roadside Manager is also the one who comes along after county road construction projects and stabilizes the site with a mix of native grasses and wildflowers. About half the counties in the state have made roadsides this much of a priority and hired a Roadside Manager. Three fourths of the counties are doing at least some planting with native species.

Successful native plantings are not the result of someone casually putting down seed and then walking away. A good Roadside Manager knows how to install the seed and is around to look after the plantings during establishment and provide protection and maintenance over time. As self-sustaining as prairie plants can be, roadsides are too prone to disturbance and native plantings too ever present to say native plantings are going to be maintenance free. The effort is still considered worthwhile.

Iowa Department of Transportation administers two programs that help counties plant and maintain natives. The Living Roadway Trust Fund (LRTF), established in 1989, has purchased seventy-five native grass drills at $10,000.00 each and given thirty counties $15,000.00 each towards purchase of a hydro-seeder. Funding for equipment for seedbed preparation and conducting prescribed burns is also available. LRTF has funded roadside vegetation inventories for fifty counties. The inventory is a valuable tool for locating and protecting existing prairie remnants and for establishing baseline data to prioritize management activities and measure program success.

For professional development LRTF has funded sixteen annual roadside conferences and roadside manager meetings, several training workshops and a variety of research. To enable the citizens of Iowa to understand and appreciate what’s being done, LRTF has funded an immense public information campaign.

The other DOT administered program that has helped counties is the Transportation Enhancement Program. Over the past eight years, that program has purchased 2.4 million dollars worth of native seed for county roadside plantings. The seed has planted 10,000 acres of rights-of-way. About fifty counties have received seed all eight years. Another twenty-five counties have gotten seed from the program at least once. The effort is showing no sign of losing support. We hope to continue the fund until all 750,000 acres of roadsides have gone native.

The extensive use of native vegetation by Iowa’s state and county road departments is not entirely due to the enlightened nature of our population. Much of it is the result of the greater need testified to by amateur botanist H.A Mueller’s observation from the 1903 Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, just seventy years after Iowa was officially opened to settlement.

“At the present time the homes of most of our native flowers are limited to the highways and timbered areas on account of the cultivation and pasturage of the land.”

Kirk Henderson manages the IRVM program at the University of Northern Iowa’s Native Roadside Vegetation Center kirk.henderson@uni.edu