Bringing the Prairie Home:  How to Add Native Plants to a Full Sun Garden

West Cook Wild Ones shares information with landowners about how important their landscaping choices are. 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.Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes promotes environmentally sound landscaping practices to preserve biodiversity through the preservation, restoration and establishment of native plant communities. Wild Ones is a not-for-profit environmental education and advocacy organization.

West Cook Wild Ones

Discover how to use native prairie plants in your full sun garden.

We are excited to invite you toBringing the Prairie Home: How to Add Native Plants to your Full Sun Gardenby Drew Reaves of the Save the Prairie Society.Drew Reaves tends the beautiful prairie house garden at Wolf Road Prairie in Westchester, IL. His work in this garden inspired him to establish a full-sun garden at his own home using native prairie plants. Drew will teach us how to determine proper placement of native prairie plants by accommodating their light and moisture requirements. Drew will also discuss drainage to regulate water levels and incorporating places to observe and enjoy the plants and the animals they attract.For inspiration, Drew provided a list of some of the plants he grows in his garden: Blue Flag Iris, Bottle Gentian, Culver’s Root, Ironweed, Leadplant, Obedient Plant, Pink Turtlehead, Queen of the Prairie, Rattlesnake Master, Spiderwort, Swamp Rose-mallow, Wild Senna and Yarrow, plus various Coneflowers, Liatris, Lobelia (Cardinal and Blue), Milkweeds (Butterfly, Common, Prairie and Swamp), Monarda, Silphia (Compass Plant, Cup Plant and Prairie Dock) and Wild Indigos, as well as Big Bluestem, Bottlebrush and Prairie Dropseed Grasses and Bur and Palm Sedges.Speaker BioDrew Reaves is a retired German teacher with a PhD in German Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Save of Prairie Society affiliated with Wolf Road Prairie in Westchester, IL. In addition to his role on the board, Drew designed and cares for the Franzosenbusch Prairie House Garden at Wolf Road Prairie.

This event is Part 4 in our 4 part series Bringing Native Plant Communities Home.Please register for or enjoy the recording of these related programs:March 20: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDrnuTl9Os&amp;t=1s" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Woodland, Savanna, Prairie: How Native Plant Communities Fit In Your Garden by Iza Redlinski</a> (recording)April 10: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xdnqf0cS1U&amp;t=6s" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Bringing the Woodland Home by Roy Diblik of Northwind Perennial Farm</a> (recording)May 15: <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/277837107267" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Bringing the Savanna Home by Julia Bunn of The Spirited Gardener</a> (register)

West Cook Wild Ones Nature Walk and Picnic

Trailside Museum & Thatcher Woods,  Forest Preserve of Cook County

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Bringing the Prairie Home: How to Add Native Plants to a Full Sun Garden

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Bringing the Prairie Home: How to Add Native Plants to a Full Sun Garden

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