Amy’s sustainable practices embody the ideal of nurturing the ecosystem by supporting what is native and well-suited to a Midwest yard. One of our key challenges in Deerfield is storm water mitigation due to the loss of ecologically productive open land.
Her property is across from the middle fork of the north branch of the Chicago River, an area historically prone to flooding. Berkeley Prairie has been redesigned to support a natural flood plain; replacing invasive buckthorn with native trees, shrubs and deep rooted native plants. Amy has championed this effort.
Taking advantage of the Village’s 50/50 parkway tree program, Amy has a Swamp White Oak facing Berkeley Prairie. Deep rooted native plants soak up and retain water on the property. She created a rain garden fed by a downspout.
Her Monarch Waystation includes great examples of Shrubby St. John’s Wort, Cardinal flower, Swamp milkweed, blue baptisia, Purple coneflower, Meadow blazing star, native clematis, Royal catchfly, Ozark bluestar, Spotted beebalm, Little bluestem grass.
Like many of our gardeners, Amy grows plants from seed stock from her own garden and from native plant companies like Prairie Moon Nursery.
So far Amy has grown 5 species from the Native Seed Gardeners program: Early goldenrod, whorled milkweed, hairy wood mint, turtlehead and heart leaved skullcap.The Native Seed Gardeners program is a collaboration between different organizations including Citizens for Conservation (CFC) in Barrington. They gather wild native plant seed, grow it in greenhouse conditions, and give people plants to put in their yards with the expectation that they give back seeds for use in restoration projects.
CFC has a fantastic online plant resource, and can help select a good site/plant pairing because they want this stuff to succeed. Pickup is usually the last weekend in June. If you’re interested you’ll have to wait until 2021 planting season to get plants.
Amy’s sustainable yard features include:
- Seedlings raised from her garden seeds: native hibiscus, royal catchfly, meadow blazing star, bottlebrush grass, blue baptisia, swamp milkweed
- Native Seed Gardeners: early goldenrod, whorled milkweed, hairy wood mint, turtlehead and heart leaved skullcap
- Rain barrels
- Composters
- Electric lawnmower
- Victory garden including native flowers (cardinal flower and black eyed susans), zinnias, beans, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, arugula, mustard greens, kale, swiss chard, squash, carrots, dill, sage, and oregano.
- Cup plant
- Joe Pye weed
- Yellow coneflower
- New England aster
Photo Gallery
All photos by Keith Dadey
