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near northwest side of city - 2006

Garden bed shape is flagged. Planting has not begun.

 

A newly planted corner

 

The garden again at 2 months.

 

The other side of the yard - two months.

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Chicago, North side -

This shady backyard garden on the north side of Chicago features a wooden bridge and colorful bird house "apartment building," bird feeders and a bench for sitting and contemplating it all.

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Willow Springs Photos by Diana Krug:

Glad to see you at the Wild Ones Conference. Sorry we didn't get a chance to chat. Thought I'd send a couple photos of the garden.It looked pretty good this year. Your suggestion of Rudbeckia speciosa was great, they look fabulous. Next year the grass should make it's real appearance. We put in Little Blue Stem, Prairie Dropseed, Bicknelli's Sedge, SIde Oats Grama. I really appreciated all the assistance you gave, with plant species suggestions. These photos are some of the plants from your Wolf Road Prairie Sale.

- Diana

"We had hummingbirds visit this Royal Catchfly, an excellent plant that is highly suggested for native gardens by Chicago Wilderness."

Diana describes her project in more detail: I started with my front yard, I live in a townhouse, so it’s postage stamp size. I began ID-ing spring ephemerals, then prairie species and gardened the front yard until I was out of space. Many of those plants also came from Art.

The Townhouse board approached me, because of the front yard, to help with this circle in the center of the community (770sq ft)... Click here to see photos of this native gardening project.

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Skokie:

We began by removing a conventional square yew hedge and a large spruce tree that had overgrown the small yard in front of a very conventional Georgian house.

 

Under Art's direction, Luis, Jose, Tony, and Diego went to work placing the stones to create the terraced effect and constructing the bird bath using pieces from the trunk of the spruce tree.

 

A variety of shrubs, flowers, and grasses were placed in this garden. Some of these bloom in the spring and others in the summer. The downspout drains into a buried plastic pipe that is covered with small stones to look like a stream bed. It carries water to create a water feature.

 

In the back yard, native plants are placed along the garage, with a feature using pots and rocks at one end and an existing fern garden at the other. In front of the ferns is another birdbath resting on a stump of the spruce tree.

 

A collection of native shrubs are placed on the shady side of the house. I had seen Art's beautiful, if unconventional, work in a friend's yard and trusted that he would have a vision of what my little garden could become. Look back here in a month or two for pictures of how this garden fills in the second year.

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the Sittig family, antioch:

Dear Art,

Thanks so much for our garden...I love how it looks. We still have more to go and want to think about phase two.

"The rock ledge makes this special."

 

"I love this tree. It seems quite sturdy and its leaves are great." (Oak-leaf hydranga)   "Bob has since gotten a brown drain pipe and it blends quite well."

 

"Thanks for turning an eyesore into a special place."

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