Please enjoy this tour of a Re-Ecology LTD project!
Contact us if you would like more details about this project, or if you would like to transition your corporate site to a sustainable and beautiful landscape!
This video was made in December 2018.
My role on this project was design and oversight for a specialty landscape contractor (who was NOT the regular contractor maintaining the site). As we transitioned the site, the team, I worked for was responsible for all stewardship gardening in the “re-ecologized” areas.
The number of Monarch butterflies attracted to the new “re-ecology” plantings was stunning and magical!
I ran across this website today. I hope to write more about it later, but suffice to say, this is great info!
If we are going to design, implement, and maintain landscapes, it is our mission to support birds as much as we can.
If you don’t see a picture directly above this sentence, please click the link below. I have many skills but am not an expert with embeds, and I notice the Storymap is not displaying on all platforms! So sorry! Go to their site, please.
I was looking to see if there is an author indicated on the Birds in Chicago Storymap, and it is not apparent, however, please check out their website. Storymaps is part of arcgis.com. Enjoy!
You can still register and attend the VIRTUAL IMPACT CONFERENCE presented by the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association. Registration is open, and the live event is Friday, 10/23/2020, and not to be missed!
Great information sharing happening, including continuing education opportunities and live sessions.
Please join us! This is not just for professionals!
Many thanks to ILCA and the Committee, and the Sponsors!!!
Extra appreciation to all involved since this is the first time this conference has been online-only. Looking forward to 2021, and meeting in person again!
Sometimes people asked why I started my own company…. many reasons
Mostly because I love designing, creating, and managing/stewarding the landscapes we impact, build on, and create.
I also found myself on design teams for great landscapes, and some that could have been great, but for the forces of how we manage and steward our landscapes over time. They don’t line up…. sadly, in many situations….
I thought we should manage our lands more like a farmer, a gardener, a parent. We should steward them, encouraging growth, life, abundance and flourishing. After all Beauty is a force of Nature, and Nature is, after all, Beauty.
Lately, I find myself doing more and more explorations of places, and recording thoughts and observations. Not sure where it is going, but it seems a great treat to spend time watching the spring SPRING this year, in the midst of unprecedented times.
You might enjoy this little walk from a few days ago
What a treat to have already installed a garden this season! These native plants will thrive, and as spring comes and the soil warms, their roots will go deep.
Now and then, we do these residential projects…. and we really enjoy them!
It is exciting that this back yard gets quite a bit of sun. The plantings were composed to create privacy for the hammock, a great home for a new Oak tree, support for #birdsbeesandbutterflies and such. Though the plants are protected from rabbits now by a mesh fence, we anticipate this garden will be tough enough to co-exist and feed the bunnies after the plants establish (but that will depend a little on the hawks).
Most of the plants were installed as “plugs” – very small handfuls of dirt and roots. This gives them the chance to establish quickly in their new home. During the first year or two the plants will put most of their energy into sending out roots. Some of these plants can have root systems that go 8 to 12 feet deep! By year two and three, the plantings will start to really express their structure. The matrix areas will share, intertwine, and co-create throughout the seasons. The larger, more “wow” plants, like the Silphiums and Liatris will make great eye-catchers while other tall and full prairie plants create some privacy.
The shade matrix area includes two to three species of sedges, maybe more. Interplanted in them are Phlox, some Allegheny Spurge I wanted to try having seen it coated in pollinators at a property in St. Charles last spring, and some other plants. There are three species of Penstemon interplanted in this garden. The locations were chosen based on the anticipated sunlight. Penstemon is a reliable, “well-behaved” genus, and the plants are lovely, flowering for quite a long time. Some species are quite early, and some start later but continue flowering for many weeks.
Panicum virgatum and a couple species of Joe Pye Weed will help providing privacy. Several Lindera benzoin, Northern Spice Bush, will provide swallowtail habitat, and smell delicious! Hand pruning will keep them from getting to large. There is a nice place to put the hammock stand next to the Oak, and watch the bird bath. Once the plants grow and flower, one could spend all afternoon watching the pollinators, and in the fall, watching the birds collect seeds.
There should be an array of pollinators on the Vernonia fasciculata, Ironweed. There is plenty of Asclepias, or milkweed, also. Helenium autumnale is a rubust and gorgeous performer. This plant will likely grow large fairly quickly, but after a few years decide to move to a different location. Remember, Nature can’t be tamed or controlled, just observed, guided and nudged.
Another favorite plant to provide quick size and many flowers in this type of soils is Solidago speciosa. Here is a picture of it in Wisconsin loaded with butterflies. It is one of my very favorite plants. In the Wisconsin Sand Barrens, it is small. I have also seen it in large colonies. Here is a great picture of a single plant.
There is an elderberry and a serviceberry that will provide delicious berries – as long as you beat the birds to them!
To help screen the view of the garages in the back of the lot, several plant types were intermixed to provide a naturalistic screen and a sense of depth. We wanted this to be effective reasonably quickly, but within budget. There are also overhead powerlines. Five Rhus typhina are carefully located back there, and in a few years will be quite noticeable, especially in the fall when they turn glorious red-orange. Over time, it will take some strategic pruning and guiding to keep these plants proper in size and shape for the job they are being asked to do, but this is part of the fun. I even imagine walking below their canopy or sitting on a chair in their shade in a few years, hidden from the outside world.
This is a good time to talk a little about how gardens are never stagnant or stationary. The garden is ruled by Nature, and She is always evolving. Stewardship Gardening is the term I use to describe the kind of insight, planning, and work that goes into keeping the determined (even evolving) aesthetic strong in a designed landscape, even as it evolves over time. This work also allows the ecological value of the landscape to be. This is a big discussion, and I think there might be a post here somewhere that talks about it a little….. …to be continued another time
Thank you!
All plants used in this landscape are indicated as being native to Illinois except the Allegheny Spurge which tends to be from farther east, and the Amelanchier, which is a cultivar, and the two Thuja cultivars. No other cultivars, and no exotic plants were used.
I assure you working with Piet is as wonderful as this video that so beautifully and eloquently explains and shows….. During these unprecedented times, the soul is telling us many things, if we are still enough to hear. To find solace, peace, and inspiration in Nature is my love, and a love I work to share. We all can have a wonderful garden. It can be a few square feet, a container, or as big as the land you have for it….!
a nice look at a corporate project, “re-ecologized” by Re-Ecology LTD….. contact us, and we can do this for you, too
I had fun sharing my experiences, observations, and strategies for “re-ecologizing” with Wild Ones, West Cook this past weekend…. Here are a few snippets from the presentation I gave. I discussed plant community-based design, and native-plant-community based design and installation and stewardship gardening, and touched on soil health and, of course, monarchs.
Check out their Events…. Doug Tallamy is coming to town in April! Don’t miss!