Category: Learning

Rethinking Spring Clean-up

Hold your rake!  Clearing out your garden can backfire.  Raking everything out and tossing into yard bags removes the building blocks of soil and destroys beneficial insects (butterflies, moths, fireflies, etc) that found a safe place in your garden during the winter. You can learn more about some of these animals in this post: What’s […] Continue reading "Rethinking Spring Clean-up"

Two Simple, Easy, and Natural Steps for Summer Habitat Garden Maintenance

Summer is almost here, and plants are up.  You’ve been a good dooby and left some stems standing to provide habitat/nesting areas for cavity-nesting bees (such as Mason Bees and tiny Carpenter bees).  Maybe you’re also worried about pulling weeds and not sure how best to handle the situation. Below are some quick and easy […] Continue reading "Two Simple, Easy, and Natural Steps for Summer Habitat Garden Maintenance"

Green Guides: Native Gardens

Green Guides Native Gardens Your garden can be attractive aesthetically and ecologically when you use native plants.  You can incorporate native plants into an existing garden, or you can create a garden from scratch. Below are the 4 steps to a native garden: Understand your site and select appropriate plants.  You need to know the […] Continue reading "Green Guides: Native Gardens"

Deer Resistant Plants

Deer Resistant Plants We’ve been asked a few times about deer-resistant plants, and we’ve done some research and have compiled the below list sorted by sun requirements. To assemble the document we cross-referenced from different sources that report these native plants as being deer resistant.  Sources include personal experiences from prairie restorationists, Prairie Moon Nursery, […] Continue reading "Deer Resistant Plants"

Start-up Guide for Native Gardens in West Cook County

Native Gardening Basics There are many ways to start using native plants in your garden. You can start to incorporate native plants into your existing landscape – or – you can start completely from scratch. First, make an assessment of the environmental conditions (shady or sunny, drainage, soil types, irrigation, etc.). Also, make an inventory […] Continue reading "Start-up Guide for Native Gardens in West Cook County"

Native bees in the garden.

Ms. Fisher’s talk “Native Bees in the Garden” will discuss our wild native bees from a gardener’s perspective. Everyone knows how important honey bees are for pollination, but native bees are even more important, especially in the garden.Topics will include the differences between native bees and honey bees, their life cycles, what they like for habitat, […] Continue reading "Native bees in the garden."