Plants with a purpose: How Tulsa is using wildflowers to save money

Wildflowers are blooming in four small areas across Tulsa, as part of a new program to lower the cost of mowing grass on city owned property. The city said the flowers will also help improve water quality.

Just east of the Tulsa International Airport along Coal Creek, the sounds of traffic and nature compete. 

But in this small patch of land, the wildflowers command attention among the grass.

"In about the last month or so as the temperatures have warmed up, it's been great to see them really jump out there and the blooms start to explode,” City of Tulsa Stormwater Divisions Operation Manager Jacob Hagen said.

He said the seeds were spread across a total of 10 acres earlier this year, for a trial run with Watershed Wildflower Meadows.

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Hagen said the city spent about $5,000 on the wildflower seeds. He said that is about the same as it would cost to mow the same 10 acres, for a year.

"So it's a net neutral this first year, but then hopefully in the years to come as these areas naturally sustain themselves with the seed and the wildflowers, they'll be able to have some cost savings down the road,” Hagen said.

Hagen said those savings would not immediately be noticed by Tulsans on their water bills. But this is a preventative step for the city's water quality, meaning fewer cost increases over time.

"If we're not implementing these measures that improve the water quality, we might have to ask for additional rate increases down the road to offer other treatment processes to improve the water,” Hagen said. “Whereas some of these natural areas with these wildflowers we're incorporating do that on their own."

Cutting back on the mowing, and letting native plants grow.

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The Native Plant Society and ODOT have worked together for years to plant wildflowers along hundreds of acres along highways across the state.

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