Clockwise from top left, Elderberry, Persimmon, Wild Black Currant, and Pawpaw are some of the edibles available from the Native Tree & Shrub Sale, a non-profit fund-raiser for Green Community Connections. Photos by EM80/Pixabay, James DeMers/Pixabay, and Nataliya Hora/Shutterstock.
By Laurie Casey
Between the COVID virus and extreme weather running amok, Mother Nature doesn’t seem to be in a playful mood during the summer of 2020. But if you know where to look in your neighborhood, you can find wild beauty that’s a balm to the human soul. . . in urban pocket prairies and native jewel-box gardens.
Growing a native garden has never been easier: plant sales and information are readily available. Are you curious? Here are two resources you can access that will help you add more native plants, more beauty, more flavor, more life, and less work to your landscape.
Fall Native Tree and Shrub Sale
The Fall Native Tree and Shrub Sale is going on now. Sponsored by several area non-profits, all proceeds will go to Green Community Connections and its programming. Support sustainability and beautify your yard: win-win!
Find young trees and healthy shrubs for $36 each, on average. All plants are from Possibility Place Nursery in Monee and are grown from seeds local to the greater Chicago area. Why is this important? These plants have evolved here over thousands of years and are exquisitely attuned to our soils, insects and climate.
New shrubs for this year include colorful Wahoo (also known as Burning Bush), fragrant Northern Bayberry, and fruiting Chokecherry. The sale also includes trees such as edible Pawpaw, elegant Blue Beech and majestic Chinquapin Oak.
You can order online until Sept. 4. Pick up is Sept. 19, at Euclid Methodist Church in Oak Park. (Because it is Rosh Hashanah, please let us know if you would like us to schedule an alternate date for you to pick up your plants.) Order here: https://wild-ones-west-cook.myshopify.com/
Please contact West Cook Wild Ones if you have any questions about species and growing conditions: westcook@outlook.com.
West Cook Wild Ones, Interfaith Green Network, the Conservation@Home program of the Forest Preserves of Cook County, and the University of Illinois Extension are essential collaborators and sponsors for the sale.
Native Gardening Webinar
West Cook Wild Ones and the Interfaith Green Network are putting on a free webinar – “Native Gardens Through the Seasons: A Virtual Walk” -- that offers a deep dive into one Berwyn and two Oak Park native gardens, coming up on Sept. 12.
Their annual native garden tour is going virtual this year, and while we will miss the smells and up-close sights, we’ll get a deeper look at the way the gardens develop through the seasons. We’ll also get very practical, hands-on advice to bring native plants into our own gardens.
“This will be an exciting and vivid multimedia presentation by our three experts: largely self-taught home gardeners who are eager to show you how their gardens perform year-round and the fascinating birds, butterflies, native bees and other beneficial wildlife they attract,” says Laura Hartwell Berlin, Garden Tour co-chair.
The three featured gardeners are passionate self-learners and, combined, have more than 50 years of expertise with native plants.
Adrian Fisher is a West Cook Wild Ones board member, Forest Preserves of Cook County site steward and rare plant monitor. Formerly she was the sustainability coordinator at Triton College. She blogs at https://www.ecologicalgardening.net.
Candace Blank is membership director for West Cook Wild Ones. She gardens on a lovely lot-and-a-half in Berwyn.
Stephanie Walquist, co-founder of West Cook Wild Ones, has been gardening for butterflies for 17 years and is a parent of children who have been very involved in the garden.
They will be sharing dozens of photographs and a few short videos to enhance their presentation.
“Native Gardens Through the Seasons: A Virtual Walk” is a joint effort between the West Cook chapter of Wild Ones and the Interfaith Green Network.
Registration for the tour is free, but there is a freewill suggested donation of $10 to help the presenting organizations support current and future programming and grants that promote a healthy environment for us all. Visit https://westcook.wildones.org/2020/08/03/2020-garden-tour/ to learn more and register.
Join the Movement!
Native gardens are high-performance, lower-maintenance gardens that bring huge benefits to a home landscape: they eliminate the need for poisonous pesticides or expensive commercial fertilizers, reduce home energy consumption, help reduce flooding after storms, and decrease the need for sprinklers and other outdoor water use.
In addition, growing a native garden is a powerful way to combat climate change by helping capture carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in your soil. And perhaps most importantly, by growing native plants, you can provide essential habitat for birds, bees, butterflies and threatened pollinators.
Habitat loss is among the primary factors driving population declines of important local and migratory species. Every additional native plant garden, no matter how small, can help preserve this biodiversity.
Clockwise from top left, Ninebark, Wahoo (also known as Burning Bush), Northern Bayberry, and Buttonbush, all available from the Native Tree and Shrub Sale. Photos by manfredrichter/Pixabay; nnattalli, MochaVP, and shuliak/Shutterstock.