West Cook Wild Ones Native Garden Tour returns

West Cook Wild Ones is bringing its native garden walk to Oak Park and Berwyn Saturday, July 27.  The annual walk will feature nine, color-filled gardens that showcase the beauty and utility of native plants.

This year’s lineup of gardens includes three types: mature gardens, young gardens and gardens with a mix of natives and ornamentals. Homeowners and gardeners will be on hand during the walk to answer questions.

In Oak Park, Barbara Rose worked with professionals and designed some areas of her garden herself to maximize its potential. With experience as a volunteer doing restorative work in county forest preserves, she said her gardening style tends to be less formal.

Rose got involved in native gardening gradually, first attending some Wild Ones meetings.

“I heard Doug Tallamy speak at a Wild Ones conference years ago, and I was so moved by what I heard. I went all on board,” she said, referring to the well-known entomologist, ecologist and conservationist who has written widely about the benefits of native gardens.

One of the benefits of native gardening is that it attracts a lot of wildlife. 

“I like looking out my windows and seeing something that looks like nature. I love seeing insects and birds,” Rose said. “That’s what native plants do.”

She first started in her front yard where the soil under a locust tree was dry and hard. She transformed that area with help from Red Stem Native Landscaping.

During the pandemic, Rose focused on the parkway in front of her home, smothered the grass and created a native garden. She is slowly transforming her back yard with native plants, as well. It was once purely ornamental; she estimates it is now 80% native plants.

Rose said there are three distinct areas to her garden, which she hopes will provide something of interest to all attendees. 

“It’s always evolving, which is exciting,” she said.

Also in Oak Park, Paul Ford said he has been working on his garden for some time. “I’m not 100% sure how and when this really happened,” he said about his yard’s transformation to a native garden.

When he brought the property 25 years ago, he said he wanted to put in native trees. Inspired by his mother’s gardening style and the fact that he spent a lot of time in the woods while growing up in southern Indiana, he looked to plant trees that belonged in the area.

“At the time, I wasn’t part of a group. I naively go into this without realizing there was a whole movement afoot.”

He soon became acquainted with Tallamy’s books and appreciated his idea of creating a “national park” of people’s backyards that is hospitable to insects and native birds.

Ford said he realized there was more to native gardening than hickory trees and began to experiment with more native prairie plants in his garden. 

“I don’t have a big plan,” he said. “I just see what survives.”

He’s found that some plants, like milkweed, do incredibly well, and others, like Prairie Smoke, don’t.

He removed two invasive, woody plants and noted that if you can prove to West Cook Wild Ones that you pulled out an invasive plant, they’ll give you a new, native plant.

In front of Ford’s home there’s an oak tree that he estimated is more than 200 years old. 

“We have the privilege of living next to it,” he said, adding, “it’s really neat to be living by a denizen of the forest that used to be here.”

While Oak Park yards come in a variety of sizes, Berwyn, with its rows of classic bungalows, has city-sized lots. Walk attendees will get to see how gardeners use native plants to enhance lots of all sizes.

During the walk, attendees also will learn about West Cook Wild Ones’ fall native tree and shrub sale, and can join the West Cook Wildlife Corridor, a venture in which more than 800 gardeners in the near west suburbs have pledged to grow native plants to give a boost to local birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife.

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