Power of Native Plants
Are you new to native plants and not sure why they’re important? This infographic can help get you started: Continue reading "Power of Native Plants"
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"
Quick Tips to Tidy the Habitat Garden for Winter
Quick Tips to Tidy the Habitat Garden We understand the difficult balance there can be between having a presentable garden and being ecologically friendly. Although we tend to keep our own gardens through the winter, we still do a little trimming and thinning here and there. Below are some of the strategies we use: If […] Continue reading "Quick Tips to Tidy the Habitat Garden for Winter"
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"
Top 10 Native Plants for Full Sun
Top 10 Native Plants from West Cook Wild Ones West Cook Wild Ones has created the following list to help out anyone who is new to native plants and is unsure of where to begin their efforts. Below is a list of plants that we have found easy to grow (as long as they […] Continue reading "Top 10 Native Plants for Full Sun"
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"
Get your yard ready for monarch migration
What kind of milkweed do you have? You can still plant milkweed, just keep it watered. If you can, it would be great to plant more milkweed for next year, and you can sow seeds nowtheyll stay dormant until after winter/spring. Some patches of milkweed (and different kinds is […] Continue reading "Get your yard ready for monarch migration"
Native bees in the garden.
Ms. Fishers talk Native Bees in the Garden will discuss our wild native bees from a gardeners 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."