Carol Smith has been interested in the outdoors, particularly plants, all her life.

Since Carol’s father was an elementary school principal, the family could travel every summer in all directions from Wichita KS, where she grew up. They camped in a pickup truck camper, hiking and backpacking in national parks from the Smoky Mountains to the Grand Canyon. He was also an avid gardener, a direction Carol has also followed.

Carol married after graduating from the University of Kansas with a degree in nursing; they moved to Kentucky. After parting from her first husband, and while working at a hospital in Paducah KY, she met and married paramedic Sam Smith. Sam’s new job at Xerox brought them to Oklahoma in 1991. She recently retired from nursing after 34 years at Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma City. Her hospital work included Healing Touch, a healing energy therapy, which she still teaches.

Carol and Sam have attended the Oklahoma Gardening School at Myriad Gardens for many years, where they heard Adam Sarmiento speak about the importance of native plants. Carol thinks that may be where they first heard about ONPS, which they joined soon after starting to attend its meetings.

In 2000 the Smiths built a house on 5 acres in Northwood Lake Estates northeast of Oklahoma City. Residents can fish and boat in the lake, an Army Corps of Engineers project. The Smiths are caretakers for their lake bay, which Carol estimates is as big as two football fields. They have planted button bush, persimmons and other trees.

After meeting Adam, they asked him to come out and consult with them about the front yard, which had been badly damaged during construction. When Adam visited their acreage, he pointed out that most of it is relatively undisturbed native prairie. The soil is poor, alkaline clay/shale. The western lawn is mostly native buffalo grass with an area of sand plums, and the area to the south has many native grasses such as little bluestem, and native buffalo grass with sumac and prickly pear found in patches. They found lots of antelope milkweed, spring forbs, ironweed, asters and goldenrod. Carol has planted different goldenrod varieties, additional species of milkweed and many other native pollinator plants in the past few years. She says they have some eastern red cedar but it doesn’t seem to be spreading. They have planted 32 more trees this year including oak, redbud, black cherry, and various native shrubs. The area between the house and the lake has been designated as their “Native Prairie Garden.” They mow a path to the lake as well as the perimeter. Since they can’t do controlled burns, Sam mows once a year to keep it from becoming overgrown. Their property is registered as a Monarch Waystation, and as a Certified Wildlife Habitat.

Prairie critters they have observed include raccoons, deer, possums, squirrels, skunks, rabbits and an occasional bobcat and fox. There are probably mice and moles. On the lake they see heron, geese and ducks. Butterflies are abundant, along with native bees and wasps. The frostweed had four different kinds of pollinators at once!

Carol now plants only natives and/or pollinator magnets, although following in her father’s footsteps, she has a vegetable garden (mainly edible non-natives). Their shrubs are sand plums, beauty berry, golden currant, coral berry, black chokeberry, and now serviceberry is new, hopeful. Backyard birds appreciate the one red cedar kept to provide shelter by the feeder.

Based on a recommendation from Adam, they converted their front lawn to 100% buffalo grass, planting a hybrid developed by OSU. “Tilling the front yard to remove Bermuda that grew there was a big mistake: it just brought up weed seeds.” Since other grasses sometimes grow up through the buffalo, occasional mowings are still needed, but as the buffalo grass fills in this should become less frequent, and the buffalo grass is much more drought resistant and requires no watering.

“I plant, Sam helps, mows and weeds.” He is especially interested in making a cactus bed in the front lawn.

Carol is an Oklahoma Master Gardener in Canadian County, and will help plant wildflower seeds at the El Reno county extension office for their part in ONPS’ Celebrate America project.

Carol is excited to serve as the secretary of ONPS!