
Did you miss a FLOW webinar? Our webinars are recorded and available on our YouTube channel.
Composting for a Healthier Watershed
This is a section of a five-part series produced by FLOW to educate residents about backyard conservation. The farm-to-table food stream often ends up flowing to a landfill. 40% of food in the United States is never eaten. In 2010, $161 billion worth of food was...
Lawn Care for a Healthier Watershed
This is a section of a five-part series produced by FLOW to educate residents about backyard conservation. Lawn is pervasive in the American landscape. There are an estimated 40 million acres of lawns across the country, making “lawn” the largest irrigated crop in...
Plant some late blooming “secret flowers”
Join SER (Society for Ecological Restoration) to search for secret flowers! Late-blooming flowering plants like asters, goldenrods, bonesets, and white snakeroot are hiding in your yard and other places around the city. They look like "weeds" all summer, but in the...
Neonics: What They Are and Why You Should Avoid Them
Neonicotiniods, also referred to as neonics, were developed in the 1980s and soon became the most used insecticide in the world. Their popularity spread in part because manufacturers advertised them as “safer” insecticides. By some definitions, this is true. Neonics...
Garlic Mustard: A Destructive Yet Delectable Invasive
What is it? You probably know garlic mustard even if you don’t know you know it. Odds are, it has invaded forest areas near you as it has much of the midwest. Garlic mustard, Jack-In-the-Bush, or Alliaria petiolata is a non-native understory invasive plant in North...
Fungi of the Olentangy
To start, this article will mostly be about fungi that grow along the Olentangy rather than the fungi that grow in it. There are fungi that play important roles in decomposing submerged leaf litter and wood, and some that are major parasites of aquatic animals, but...
The Lower Olentangy Greenspace Plan is now available
The Olentangy Watershed is currently home to 283,000 people. The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) expects this number to nearly double to 500,000 by 2050. With more people comes more development and more impervious surface. Maintaining a healthy watershed...
FLOW’s Stance on Issue 1
During the October Board meeting of The Friends of the Olentangy Watershed, the Board members discussed our support of the City of Columbus Community Choice Aggregation placed on the November ballot as Issue 1. Aggregation initiatives like this have passed in more...
FLOW Autumn 2020 Volunteer: Lindalee Brownstein
Lindalee has been a FLOW volunteer since 2011. She has served on the board, has volunteered for several projects and has been the newsletter editor for the past 5 years. Linda Lee is also the Arbor Chairman for Old Beechwold, which has a ravine, creek, and woodlands...
EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED – video tells FLOW’s story
Thanks to a very generous gift from one of our supporters, FLOW would like to share this video of the Olentangy Watershed and what we can accomplish if we all work together to improve our greenspaces. There is a lot of pressure on our waterways but we can combat impacts if we work in the spaces we control to reduce our 40% turf grass, remove invasive species, plant native herbaceous and woody species and clean up litter. To learn more about what you can do, please see our Greenspace Implementation report.