Who are we?

Since 2013, Wild Ones West Cook has been sharing information with our community about how important their landscaping choices are. We are a membership-based non-profit organization. Membership makes sure our chapter stays strong. Please consider becoming a member. We share our ideas, skills, and knowledge with others so that their yards can be hospitable to other animals. Working together, we all can ensure the continuation of ecosystem benefits we receive from healthy, beneficial animal and plant populations. We stand with science and enact what we learn in our landscapes. We accomplish these goals by:

• providing educational monthly programs about our native ecosystems, native gardening, and other related topics to the public;
• hosting a native plant sale, which helps people get ethically sourced and sustainably grown plants from local growers at a great price;
• creating a social media community where we share what’s happening in local gardens as well as scientific articles that connect to native plants and biodiversity;
• collaborating with and supporting other local environmental organizations;
• developing online and print resources;
• sponsoring conferences where we have nationally recognized speakers present;
• creating a wildlife corridor (stepping stone model) that offers refuge to all kinds of beneficial urban wildlife.

If you’d like to help us accomplish all of these goals (and more!), please consider volunteering. Click here to sign up: Volunteer.

If you’d like to receive our latest news, sign up for our newsletter. Click here to sign-up: Get Newsletter

If you would like to view any of our past recorded programs, you can click here to go to our YouTube channel. 

Fall (and Spring) No Clean-up Time

Your garden’s work is not done even if the plants are shutting down for winter.  All of the plant material will continue to provide food and refuge for many animals as well as feed your soil (and thus your plants in growing season).  You can read a detailed post here about why leaving your garden standing is actually beneficial, even if it does counter much conventional gardening wisdom: What’s in a Leaf Pile, Or Why Not to Do Fall Clean-Up

Sign you can download and print if you would like.  Here is a PDF: No Fall Clean Up