A Gardener’s Journey Toward Using More Native Plants

Photos by the author.

Laurel Ann Kaiser was partly inspired to convert her 1.2-acre Hawthorn Woods (Lake County) yard into one brimming with native plants by visiting natural areas. There she noticed different plants bloomed in succession throughout the growing season.

She recalls, for example, “When I saw pale purple coneflowers blooming in profusion on a hillside at Moraine Hills State Park in June, I was just in heaven.” Later in August, she saw prairie dock blooming at the park, while the coneflowers had all faded.

Now pale purple coneflowers are growing in her yard as well as prairie dock, along with hundreds of other species of plants, mostly Illinois natives. Her landscape has been featured annually for seven years on an America in Bloom garden walk.

On an early June day, a month after her native Virginia bluebells and Jacob’s ladder had bloomed, penstemon’s white flowers and lance-leaved coreopsis’ yellow booms were taking center stage. Native roses, most likely swamp rose, also were blooming, attracting copious tiny bees, and emitting a soft, sweet smell. Nearby Queen-of-the-prairie plants, an Illinois threatened species available through some gardening centers, were just starting to open their feathery inflorescences that would burst open in mid-June to foamy clouds of pink.

The leaves of gray-headed coneflowers and showy goldenrod had just emerged and would show off their sunny yellows later in summer along with blue vervain and Joe-Pye-weed complementing the landscape with pink and blue.

Kaiser has learned to recognize plants in many stages. For example, “Vervain has long, narrow, opposite leaves with perforated edges, while Joe -Pye-weed has wider leaves that are more whorled,” she explained.

Kaiser has also dabbled in native sedge plantings, including Gray’s sedge. “Look at the fluorescence, look at how cool that is,” she said. “When you touch them, they’re like little spiky balls. I just love them.”

As towering hickories and oaks reach to the sky, prairie willow and other shrubs such as hazelnut and gooseberry form a secondary layer in her yard.

It takes time, trial-and-error, patience, failures and hard work to create the kind of landscape Kaiser has. Her journey began 25 years ago when she and her husband, James, purchased their home partly because of the number of native oak, walnut and hickory trees.

Kaiser also discovered several native spring ephemerals, including Jack-in-the-pulpit and wild geranium, already growing. But there were also lots of yews and barberries that had to go.

She admitted, “Back then it was more about how I could get more color into this shaded garden.”

She planted various cultivars of astilbes that bloomed in different colors at different times and added other perennials such as hydrangeas and hostas with different colors and patterns as well as baskets of bright, shade-loving annuals.

When her black walnut was hit by lightning and had to be removed, a huge sunny spot opened up for her to create and expand a prairie garden.

“Where my prairie garden is now, it was beautiful and colorful, but it didn’t have many natives in it,” she said. “If something died, I’d replace it with a native plant that loves sun,” she said.

“I also started getting rid of day lilies,” not an easy task because they are extremely hardy.

Over time, she dug out more beds in her lawn, and planted natives that would grow well in various environments.

“I joined a native gardening group in Illinois and kept learning more,” she said. “I decided I really want to give native gardening a try. I wanted to be able to make it just as beautiful as a finely honed ornamental trimmed garden.”

Kaiser also planted native shrubs, including hazelnut and spicebush, as well as understory trees such as hop hornbeam.

Kaiser said she’s come to appreciate not only the colorful blooms of native plants, but also textures and shapes.

Her beds vary from dry and sunny to wet and shady, and she’s learned each plant has its own requirements and may work in one place, but not in another.

Kaiser mused how she purchased three black chokeberries several years ago and planted them into a wet, wooded part of her yard. Rabbits chewed them almost to the ground. She moved them to a more open, sunnier space.

“They are doing just great now,” she said. “They have beautiful white flowers and now they’re developing berries that the birds will love in the fall.”

By planting natives, Kaiser said she has begun to see more interaction with insects, birds and plants. Her swamp milkweed, for example, has attracted monarchs to lay eggs, which hatched into caterpillars.

A few years ago in May, she noticed her pearly everlasting looked like it was getting chewed. She saw little black caterpillars on the plant and learned it was a host plant for painted lady and American lady butterflies. The plant came back to life and by August it had pearly white blooms, she said. The Xerces Society website says as with “many native plant-insect relationships, the (pearly everlasting) generally makes a full recovery and flowers by late summer.”

Kaiser also has learned that native plants provide food and shelter for pollinators, while nonnatives often don’t.

“Nonnative plants and those plants that have been bred for traits important to humans (flower color, length of blooming period, size of flower, etc.), often do not provide much or any pollen and nectar for native pollinators,” according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources native plant web site.

“You can have a yard full of blooming plants that will provide little food and nectar for any pollinators,” according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR).

Kaiser said she is not a purist; she still places pots of various annuals such as begonias in her landscape, and does use some nonnative perennials, for example, masterwort.

“They are great for pollinators and they don’t spread,” she said. “I have them here for some color for a portion of the year, and if they ever take over, I’ll get rid of them.”

Though not native to Illinois, hostas and boxwood also remain part of her garden landscape.

Kaiser said she has gradually come to feel that she is a steward of the land.

“I want to feel like I can contribute to the ecological health of the land and of the flora and the fauna that live on the land,” she said. “I don’t want to destroy it by putting pesticides on it. I want to learn more about the plants, what kind of critter is on that plant, what kind of bee is that?”
Kaiser said she encourages anyone, no matter how small their yard is, to plant natives.

“Just get started with one thing, maybe coneflowers or black-eyed Susans,” she said. “Cut out a small piece of lawn you can live without and then just keep going from there.”

Plants can be found in many ways, including through a native Illinois plant garden website, local native plant sales and from a friend’s garden.

For a list of plants native to Illinois, where they grow best and ways to care for them, visit this IDNR website.

For more on managing and integrating wildlife habitats into your property, and learning how to better coexist with natural landscapes and the wildlife they support, visit the Conservation Inclusive Construction and Development Archive (CICADA) .

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Sheryl DeVore writes environment and nature pieces for regional and national publications and has had several books published, including “Birds of Illinois” co-authored with her husband, Steven D. Bailey.