A grant from the Clean Ohio Fund, along with money from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other local funds, paid for purchase of a 147-acre tract of farmland adjacent to Germantown MetroPark on Boomershine Road across the road from the park’s sled hill entrance. MetroParks created a planted prairie on this land, designed to give a lift to the 2,000-mile annual flight of the Monarch butterfly across North America.

Native grasses, plants and flowers such as milkweed that are favorites of the Monarch butterfly and other pollinators, including honeybees. About 2,000 pounds of seeds were planted by volunteers and staff to create this pollinator habitat. It took two years for the field, which had been planted in soybeans, to return to an appearance similar to a native Ohio prairie of the type that was common here hundreds of years ago.