Plants – Wild Things Community

CPS Students Restore Dan Ryan Woods

While many Chicagoans stayed indoors on Saturday, December 10, a group of CPS students bundled up in warm layers and rolled up their sleeves to restore a natural habitat. Iyanna Hayden, a participating student from Whitney Young High School said, “This is important to me because there are a lot of things that aren’t the way they should be as far as how we treat our environment. I’m here to make a difference.”

Covan Cox, Senior at Simeon Career Academy – 12/10/2016, © Maryam Salem — Covan Cox, Senior at Simeon Career Academy. – 12/10/2016, © Maryam Salem

Students were part of a Calumet Is My Back Yard (CIMBY) Senior Service Day at Dan Ryan Woods. CIMBY is a service learning program of the Chicago Public School’s Department of Social Science and Civic Engagement which helps students reconnect with nature and learn about the local environment. Students engage in outdoor science learning activities and stewardship to benefit the Calumet region. “CIMBY’s program offers interactive activities that allow our students to learn in a unique outdoor setting about their natural environment,” explains Lauren Woods, CPS Service Learning Coordinator.

Students worked alongside Benjamin Cox and Larry Unruh, Forest Preserve District site stewards, to remove invasive plants including buckthorn and honeysuckle. Introduced from overseas and able to grow in low quality soil, these invasive plants don’t give native plants and trees an opportunity to grow, negatively impacting the health of the local ecosystem. After two hours of stewardship work, the students were guided on a nature hike with Field Museum staff. Students learned about a variety of native plant and animal species and the importance of preserving species like the White Oak tree, a keystone species of Illinois.

CPS students on a nature hike at Dan Ryan Woods during Senior Service Day. – 12/10/2016, © Maryam Salem

The conservation efforts undertaken by CIMBY promote native trees and wildflowers to grow in places like Dan Ryan Woods, one of the very few preserves left in the city of Chicago. “Cook County has 69,000 acres of forest preserve, but only about 3,000 of them are in the city of Chicago—and this is one of them,” explained Benjamin Cox.

Dan Ryan Woods is home to dense forests, old oak woodlands and colorful ephemeral wildflowers. Much of the stunning natural preserve sits on an elevation, once an island of the ancient Lake Chicago over 10,000 years ago. Volunteer groups have been working to restore this beautiful landscape for over 10 years. As they work on projects like these, we hope the preserves will continue to see an increase in bird species and native animal habitats. For more information about volunteering with the Forest Preserves of Cook County please visit: http://fpdcc.com/volunteer/.

—Maryam Salem, Stewardship Coordinator for Calumet Is My Back Yard

Editor’s note. Learn a lot more about Calumet, the Forest Preserves of Cook County, and getting students outdoors at Wild Things 2017.

—Stephen Constantelos

Multimedia Education For Local Conservationists

The Woodland Stewardship Program in action. © The Morton Arboretum

As a professional ecologist and educator, I often think about the resurgence of nature in our local landscapes. Spending time in nature with the many mentors who have inspired and encouraged my involvement has always been the best learning experience in the world. Many patient hours have been spent in the field, developing detailed observation skills over many seasons. I’ve gained an invaluable education from knowledgeable ecologists such as June Keibler, Brad Semel, Bill Kleiman, and Stephen Packard who each have years of innovative field experience in ecological restoration. They have learned by trial and error to develop effective techniques for vegetation management that benefit wildlife habitat and promote whole ecosystem recovery, which is the lofty goal of ecological restoration. Other mentors in botany have taught me the local flora through many hours in the field comparing habitat and species composition in the various plant communities.

Brad Semel, heritage biologist for IDNR, leading a Restoration & Wildlife class. © The Morton Arboretum

Other ways to learn might be a college degree, an internship, or simply volunteering in the nearby nature preserve… I have done all of the above and am still learning, that’s what makes science great fun! By applying science to restoration practices we can improve the adaptive management principles which are being developed in the region. These field applications are crucial to the steward looking for insights into the how’s, what’s, and when’s—and also the dos and don’ts of ecological restoration.

The Invasive Species I course introduces the worst invasive species of the Chicago region. © The Morton Arboretum

Why not blend as many of these ways of learning into one multimedia package to help reach local conservationists? The Morton Arboretum is doing just this by creating several newly developed classes that combine online, learn-at-your-own-pace digital modules and also the indispensable expert-in-the-field instructors who can identify plants and wildlife and lead discovery hikes combined with traditional classroom activities. This dynamic style of teaching allows widespread audiences to access interactive course materials from home computers or mobile devices.

Continue reading Multimedia Education For Local Conservationists

Hazelnut and Plum: Shrub Restoration at Orland Grassland

Shrub Day volunteer group shot, Orland Grassland – 5/6/2016 © Pat Hayes — Shrub Propagation Day volunteer group shot, Orland Grassland – 5/6/2016 © Pat Hayes

It’s the first time this has been done and a lot of eyes are watching.

A unique collaborative effort by Victor J. Andrew High School (VJA) AP Environmental Science students, Illinois Master Naturalists (ILMNs), Orland Grassland Volunteers (OGVs), and the Forest Preserves of Cook County (FPCC) launched a pilot project to set up a shrub nursery at Orland Grassland from shrubs propagated on site.

With expansive prairie views, hilly, open Orland Grassland is a 960-acre wild destination for nature lovers. The area was once farmland, but since 2002 has been undergoing loving restoration as a grassland complex with prairie, wetlands, open ponds, oak savannas, shrublands, and woodlands.

The shrub project began when Laura Kirby, an AP Environmental Science teacher at VJA, contacted Pat Hayes, Orland Grassland Site Steward, asking if there was a project her students could do. Almost at the same time, Annette Pletcher, OGV and ILMN, came to Pat and asked if there was a project the ILMNs could do at Orland Grassland. Hmmm. Shrub propagation?

Enter Brigit Anne Holt, the Extension Program Coordinator, Master Naturalist, University of Illinois Extension. The question was posed: “Is it possible to take cuttings of our native American plum and hazelnut shrubs, and possibly others when timely, so that the VJA students can plant them?” The answer: “Yes, what a great project.”

After much preparation and help from many parties, “Propagation Day” was May 5, 2016.

Continue reading Hazelnut and Plum: Shrub Restoration at Orland Grassland

A Symposium/Benefit for Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods

Fall at Ryerson Woods, © Brushwood Center — Fall at Ryerson Woods, Riverside, IL © Brushwood Center

Lake County Forest Preserves’ Ryerson Woods is home to Brushwood Center, an environmental education and arts center, “a center for discourse about nature and culture.” Brushwood features an ongoing variety of programs bringing nature lovers together to paint, watch birds, practice yoga, or simply enjoy a concert against a backdrop of wood, field, and farm.

On May 14th, Brushwood Center will host the Smith Nature Symposium, a benefit dinner with a keynote by Clemson University’s Dr. J. Drew Lanham, a self-described “a man of color in love with the natural world.” Dr. Lanham is a nationally-respected voice on the deep connection between ethnicity, land, and conservation and he will be addressing the link between minority communities and critical bird habitat. Click here to register for the benefit dinner.

Sketching outside Brushwood Center, © Brushwood Center

Ryerson Woods is an amazing place with its pre-settlement flora and fauna, a place, thankfully, where we can enjoy the beauties of spring unencumbered by garlic mustard…

Continue reading A Symposium/Benefit for Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods

Sweet Home, Wild Things Style

Tiger Swallowtail on Milkweed - Naperville Backyard, 7/20/2015, © Marilyn L. Schweitzer. — Tiger Swallowtail on Common Milkweed – Naperville, 7/20/2015, © Marilyn L. Schweitzer.

My interest in environmentally friendly landscaping began when my husband and I moved near Denver. Being from the Midwest, I had prepared myself to live in a far more arid area, (Denver gets about 1/3 the rainfall of Chicago). I discovered instead that over 50% of the residential water use went to maintaining landscapes, primarily bluegrass lawns. Being a bit of a lazy and frugal sort, I decided to invest in native and other drought resistant plants rather than watering a lawn or installing a sprinkler system. I found this venture both challenging and rewarding in terms of the success of the plantings and my neighbors’ approval.

When we moved to the Chicago area in 1987, I looked forward to a new urban landscaping adventure—one starting afresh with the general principles I had learned in Colorado. Over the last 28 years I have found people to be much more accepting of environmentally friendly landscaping. While weeding dandelions from my parkway it’s gone from being told, “You can’t control those without herbicides!” to “Don’t pull those—those are early pollinators for bees!”

My approach may not be for everyone, however, here are my tips towards going native in an urban/suburban environment:
Continue reading Sweet Home, Wild Things Style

Wild Beauty in Winter Dark

Prairie Dock, Silphium terebinthinaceum (detail), © Heeyoung Kim

I used to be a happy camper when I was painting a Shooting Star in spring, but soon I realized that I could paint only one plant during that time, missing all others, because I only had limited time. After agonizing over the issue, I came up with a solution: just drawing and keeping color notes in blooming seasons, and finishing up the paintings in winter. How perfect with Chicago’s long winter! At this point, more than 70 finished and unfinished drawings are waiting for their turn. New ones are added whenever opportunities arise. Even exotic plants like Ginseng and Titan Arum have found their place in my flat file. Of course, I should paint Ginseng, an Asian cure-all, to honor my father who was an herbal medicine practitioner.

image of sketches

Often people ask me what I do in winter. Continue reading Wild Beauty in Winter Dark

Remembering Margo Milde

In Memoriam

Margo Milde

4/10/1956 – 9/26/2015

“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

Many botanists and birders in the Chicago region have seen Margo Milde in the field. She was generous in sharing her knowledge of natural areas with others. Margo was particularly gifted in recognizing bird song and sounds, a skill she attributed to the many years of arduous classical piano lessons she was forced to endure as a child. Musical training gave her ability to appreciate the subtle nuances of tone, pitch, timbre, and rhythm, just as important in identifying bird songs as they are in appreciating and performing classical works of music.

In addition to the study of piano, Margo dedicated herself to studying the plant and bird life of the Chicago region, and its interrelated human history as well. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Northeastern Illinois University (Chicago) in Biology-Environmental Studies in 1993.

In 1994 she had obtained her first professional survey contract for an updated plant inventory of Pistakee Bog Nature Preserve (Ingleside, IL). In an article she authored of her bog adventures for the Friends of Volo Bog, Bog Log in 1995, she wrote that her small stature—being less likely to sink in treacherous areas of the bog, and affording her ease of crawling through thick brush—as well as owning a functional washer and drier at home were essential attributes to her success in bog field surveys. Her work at Pistakee Bog led to numerous other botanical and bird surveys professionally for both various governmental and private agencies until her move to Pennsylvania in 2014. Continue reading Remembering Margo Milde

Bison and People — A Remarkable Journey

Wild Things 2015 Keynote

Nachusa Grasslands in Ogle County, Illinois is a sample of how extraordinary leadership by both volunteers and staff, restored a quality habitat unprecedented in ambition, scope, and diversity. Preserve Manager Bill Kleiman recalls, “When Nachusa first started out, the prairie remnants were dingy, brush filled, bisected by fences and fence row trees. Some of the prairies were so heavily grazed they looked like lawns with thorn bushes for cattle shade.” In 1986 the Nature Conservancy acquired 400 acres of small prairie remnants scattered among cornfields. In 2014, 25 years and 3,000 acres later, it is home to 700 native plant species, 180 species of birds — and now wild bison:

Wild Things 2015 Keynote: 0.01 Pat Hayes, introduction; 6:45 cook county board president Toni Preckwinkle, welcome; 16:45 Bill Kleiman, keynote speaker

Both volunteers and professionals remain crucial to this important and unpredictable drama.