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September 25, 2009
Friends, Neighbors, Countrymen... Lend Me Your Comments
Benia and I started Native Suburbia five years ago. It has been a wonderful hobby that has provided us with a yard full of flowers, birds, and butterflies. It has freed us from the pollution of lawn mowers and weeding chemicals. We actually enjoy spending time in our yard rather than seeing it as a constant chore.
Shortly after we started the project, I put up this website to share pictures and stories of our experiences. The blog format also allowed visitors of the website to leave comments. Despite the fact that the URL is posted on a sign next to the sidewalk, there has been almost no feedback so far.
Recently it has been brought to my attention that one or more persons has called in complaints to the Village of Bartlett about the plants growing in the parkway in front of my house. I was a little surprised that no one had ever posted a comment or stopped by to talk to me if they felt so strongly.
So today I have posted a larger sign in front of my house asking for YOUR feedback. Tell us what you like. Tell us what you don't like. You may leave your name or comment anonymously as you wish. We look forward to hearing your thoughts.
(Click on "Permalink" at the bottom right of this entry to leave a comment)
-Don & Benia
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April 18, 2009
Native Suburbia featured at The Natural Garden again
Benia and I made another appearance at the Natural Garden in St. Charles to tell others about Native Suburbia. We love to share our experiences with other people that are interested in native plant landscaping. Our presentation was well received and the attendees were very engaged and interested.
I learned a valuable lesson about preparing for a speaking engagement. There was almost a disaster as I first arrived and unpacked my stuff, I realized that I had forgotten the cable to connect my laptop to the projector! I had double checked everything except that. Luckily I was able to use a USB drive to copy my pictures to a laptop that The Natural Garden had. I lost the captions that were part of my presentation, but I improvise mostly anyway, so everything worked out. I will be triple checking EVERYTHING for future engagements. I hope they have me back again some day.
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May 18, 2008One of the tasks I completed yesterday while working in the yard was to get our sign post firmly back in the ground. It had been sitting loosely in its hole all week after the previous attack.
I was disappointed to see that it was once again lying on the ground this morning when I got up. One of the 3 signs had been broken off and another was bent a little. I could hardly believe what I was seeing! I cannot understand why someone would bother to target my innocent little signs. Who goes out in the middle of the night to vandalize a sign post in a suburban yard?
Vandals are despicable human beings. Do they ever stop to think about what it would be like if someone were to target their property? Imagine if vandalism were so rampant that you couldn't park your car outside. Or if people randomly chose houses to deface. Do the people who vandalize want everyone to act like they do?
I know it is a long shot that the vandals are reading this, but the URL is on the sign, so it is possible. If you are responsible for the attack on my sign post, please stop. I am not doing you any harm. If you have an issue with me, then feel free to stop by and discuss it like an adult. You could even send me a letter in the mail if you prefer anonymity. Let's just give peace a chance.
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May 13, 2008
Yesterday Benia and I returned home from a long weekend out of town in Appleton, WI. The first thing we noticed as we pulled into the driveway is that our sign post was lying on the ground. This is the post that proudly displays signs for Native Suburbia, Wild Ones, and Backyard Habitat.
We were puzzled as to how this could have happened. The post is actually a fairly thick branch that we found on the curb on trash day a couple of years ago. I had planted it firmly in the ground and it had survived a couple of winters already.
Closer inspection revealed that someone was determined enough to rock the post back and forth until it was loose. They then pulled it directly up and out of the hole and left it lying on the ground as seen in the picture.
We don't know if this was someone venting their frustration about our unique landscaping or simply misguided kids. Regardless, it is always troubling to have your property vandalized.
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April 23, 2008I look back and notice that I haven't posted anything since last October! I always meant to, but then I just never did. I would like to say it is because I have been busily working on the Native Suburbia site, but that wouldn't be true either. I did spend some time working on web pages for the Greater DuPage Wild Ones chapter You may notice that it bears some resemblance to the Native Suburbia site. Can you blame me for reusing some of my work?
Hopefully I will get around to processing some of the zillions of pictures I have sitting around. I will keep you posted.
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September 27, 2007
Common Ragweed: Stealthy Sneezemaker
I was reading "THIS WEEK at HILTON POND" for 15-21 September 2007 today and I enjoyed the piece on common ragweed and goldenrod. Both of these are native plants, but it is goldenrod that is often blamed for hayfever, while the truth is that ragweed is the true culprit.
In the early days of Native Suburbia, we let a little ragweed grow just because it was native and it was willing to fill in a spot where nothing else had grown yet. Now that we have a much larger variety of native plants we have decided that ragweed already has enough habitat that it will survive without our help. In other words we tend to pull it out when we find it growing in Native Suburbia.
I have actually been pretty lucky this year as far as allergies are concerned. I have had very minor reactions so far. Fall is usually filled with itchy eyes and a never ending runny nose. Benia has not been so lucky, but it is not because of all the beautiful goldenrod in our yard.
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August 14, 2007
Prairie Days At The Natural Garden features Native Suburbia
It is only one small part of a multi-day event, but I am happy to be sharing my experiences with a new audience. I am preparing to present my Native Suburbia slideshow at this year's Prairie Days held at The Natural Garden nursery. It was well received at a Wild Ones meeting last spring and now I have been asked to share it again.
If you read this site, then you probably know more about Native Suburbia than I will have time to cover in this presentation. This is your chance to meet Benia and I in person, so stop by and see us on Saturday, September 8, starting at 1:00PM. We love to meet others who are interested in Native Suburbia, whether it be ours or the ones in your own back yard.
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March 17, 2007
Wild Ones Meeting features Native Suburbia
This month's Wild Ones meeting featured our very own Native Suburbia. It was a live presentation of the information that we tried to convey in the articles that were published in the Wild Ones Journal. Benia and I put together a selection of pictures using JAlbum with the BananAlbum skin. I did most of the talking, with Benia chiming in when I missed something. She also operated the slide show which we ran on a Mac PowerBook G4. We were the first to use the new InFocus DLP projector that our Wild Ones chapter just purchased.
The presentation went well. I basically told the story based on the pictures. I didn't have a prewritten presentation, because I had seen the pictures so many times that each one reminded me of something. There were some good questions from the audience. It was a great opportunity to share our experiences with people and get real feedback.
The most important part of our presentation was the pictures that showed our yard every step along the way. We had taken pictures right from the beginning when Native Suburbia was still covered in lawn. It is so much fun to look back and marvel at how things used to be. I would encourage plentiful picture taking to everyone who embarks on adding native plants to their landscape. Then of course you should share the before and after pictures with everyone who will listen and perhaps we can spread the Wild Ones way far and wide.
If you were unable to attend the meeting then check out the slideshow here. Since it wasn't designed to share the layout of the rest of this site, it will open in a new browser window. Just click in that window and use the arrow keys to flip through the slides. The notes on the side were just to remind me of details. They were so small that the audience couldn't really see them.
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February 22, 2007
Native Suburbia "The Third Year" Article Published
OK, so we don't get any prizes for creative titles, but the third article in the series that we wrote for the Wild Ones Journal has been published in the January/February 2007 issue.
With this article we are caught up to present day. It talks about what we did in Native Suburbia during the 2006 growing season here in the Chicago suburbs. There is still plenty more to come though, so be sure to keep checking here for the latest news. Spring is just around the corner... isn't it? I can't wait.
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January 18, 2007
Wild Ones Meeting and Squirrels
This month's Wild Ones meeting featured Joel Brown, a Biology Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I enjoyed his presentation: SQUIRRELS, COTTONTAILS AND OTHER INHABITANTS OF THE URBAN GAME PARK. He concentrated primarily on squirrels, but I learned a lot about them, such as how to identify the grey squirrel and the fox squirrel, which are common in this area. I don't feel like I can properly summarize his presentation, so all I can say is that you should have been there.
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November 24, 2006
Native Suburbia "The Second Year" Article Published
The second article in the series that we wrote for the Wild Ones Journal has been published in the November/December 2006 issue. This has made us extremely minor celebrities at our Wild Ones chapter. We have been asked to talk about our yard at a future meeting.
People might be tired of hearing about Native Suburbia by then since all members get the Journal already. It might be a good way to start some more interactive conversation about our methods and ideas.
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September 22, 2006
Wild Ones Meeting with National Conference Recap
There was a Wild Ones (Greater DuPage chapter) meeting last night. It was the first meeting we attended since last spring. We had seen a few Wild Ones members during the summer, but in general everyone was busy in their yards and enjoying the outdoors.
There was discussion of creating satellite groups of our Wild Ones chapter due to the large geographic area that it serves. Many members live more than 25 minutes from the meeting location, including me. I wouldn't mind a shorter drive, but I am afraid that satellite groups would splinter the core membership. Current attendance at the meetings represents a low percentage of the members. Perhaps a shorter drive might encourage more people to come, but I am not convinced that is the main factor. I think that many people overbook themselves and simply don't have time to do everything they would like.
For the rest of the meeting we watched video of speakers from the Wild Ones national conference. Benia and I were unable to attend the conference, so it gave us a chance to get an idea of how it went. It seemed that the speakers were knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the topics. Unfortunately, I think that they may be preaching to the choir. I wonder how many people attended who were not already Wild Ones members or at least partially educated on the topics. I am not an expert, but it seems to me that I have generally found online, the material presented by speakers at these types of things. I can also find more detail and do it at my leisure. Not to say that the conference was a bad thing, I just don't think it is right for me.
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September 07, 2006
Native Suburbia Article Published
The first article that we wrote for the Wild Ones Journal has been published in the September/October 2006 issue. This is the first mention of Native Suburbia in a nationwide publication. It is true that the readership of the Wild Ones Journal consists of a very select group, but they are nonetheless distributed across the nation.
While all of the information in the article is available on this site, it is a nice condensed version that may reach a broader audience. A hardcopy format may fall into the hands of someone who is not likely to search the web and find this site. I hope that it inspires someone else to turn their yard into Native Suburbia.
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August 20, 2006A few days ago I received an email announcing that someone was planning to remove some areas of native plants in their yard, and they were offering the plants to anyone who wanted to come and give them a good home. Benia and I were excited at the prospect of adding some more variety to Native Suburbia without another trip to the nursery with its associated costs. So we set up a time to go and dig and awaited the day.
Yesterday we met Ted Lowe at his home in Wheaton. He is a really nice guy and he gave us a tour of his property. It turned out that the reason he was planning to remove some of his native prairie plantings was to make room for more food crops. It can be difficult to get good quality produce and, being a vegetarian, Ted needed to expand his garden. During our visit we sampled his raspberries and okra... you just can't beat home grown! I have thought of expanding the amount of food that I grow, but our yard just isn't as big as we'd like.
We spent a large part of the day digging up plants and putting them in pots for the trip home. In the end we had over 70 plants including: wild senna, cup plant, browneyed Susans, wild geranium, switch grass, grey headed coneflower, mayapple and Solomon's seal.
We also spent time talking to Ted about solar power and electric vehicles. He is a big proponent of both and it was interesting to learn from someone with personal experience.
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July 16, 2006Today we went to tour several yards of Wild Ones members in our area. The Native Suburbia project is so young that it can be difficult to imagine what it will look like when our plants take over the yard. So we were excited to see what other people had done with their yards. It was a very inspiring trip. Unfortunately, none of the yards was in the type of sterile, tightly packed neighborhood that we find ourselves in, so we are still pioneers in that aspect.
Pat Clancy; Lisle, IL: This 2-acre yard consists of a variety of habitats such as a wet prairie garden, a sunny slope terraced with limestone, and wooded areas. There was also a fair amount of lawn still present. I was very jealous of the amount of land that she had to work with.
Rich Whitney; Glen Ellyn, IL: When first driving up we noticed a prairie planting by the curb. Up the driveway is a section that has been evolving from a prairie into a woodland planting as the trees mature and block out the sun. In the beautifully wooded backyard, Rich has been fighting a valiant battle against the buckthorn. His struggle makes me thankful that I have been able to suppress most of the buckthorn regrowth in our yard.
Leslie Cummings; Wheaton, IL: This half-acre property features more than 100 species of prairie, savanna and woodland plants. The front yard is dominated by a large expanse of prairie plants. We were very interested to see this yard in the summer, because we had assisted Leslie with a controlled burn of her property in March 2006. We were very impressed with her complete commitment to converting to native plants. There is nothing resembling traditional lawn in this yard.
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February 17, 2006
Wild Ones Meeting featuring Jack Pizzo
There was a Wild Ones (Greater DuPage chapter) meeting last night. Jack Pizzo's presentation on native plant landscaping was interesting. He is a founding partner of Pizzo & Associates, Ltd. which is a full service firm specializing in the restoration of natural areas for public and private landowners. He was an engaging speaker and he had an excellent set of slides to illustrate his points.
I was concerned about his advocacy of the use of RoundUp. I understand that the size of the projects he undertakes make the use of herbicides very attractive, but we humans needs to be careful about thinking that we understand everything perfectly. Mr. Pizzo and many others believe that glyphosate based herbicides are harmless, but how can we be so sure?
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February 03, 2006Late in January we attended our first Wild Ones (Greater DuPage chapter) meeting. It was nice to meet others who share our interest in native landscaping. Unfortunately, we did not enjoy John Rotterman's presentation on man-made ponds. He presented beautiful pictures of non-native plants and fish. He discussed how to bury giant chunks of plastic in the ground, fill them with chemical laden water and expensive Japanese fish, and then hook it up to an electric pumping system. The whole thing seemed contrary to the Wild Ones' philosophy. My favorite part of the slideshow was when the second or third slide was shown and someone in the front identified a large bunch of plants in it as purple loosestrife. It only got worse from that point.
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December 16, 2005We have finished writing two articles for the Wild Ones Journal. They may be published in the summer of 2006. No promises were made, but we are looking forward to getting our story out to people who haven't yet found this great web site.
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November 20, 2005Work continues on our article for the Wild Ones Journal. We are breaking it up into two parts, each of which will cover highlights from the two years that we have been working on the Native Suburbia project. The first part is complete and hopefully it will be published in the next issue. We have completed a rough draft of the second installment of the article. It is really hard to try and tell a story in less than 1200 words. We have gone back and reworked and revised many times to convey everything we want to say in as few words as possible. Having this website has spoiled us. There are no limits when you control your own site! Of course if you are a regular visitor this this site, then you have access to the whole story anyway, but it will be exciting to reach a new audience.
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October 08, 2005
Native Suburbia May Be In Wild Ones Journal
Benia and I have been working hard on an article for the Wild Ones Journal. We have been invited to contribute the story of our experiences with Native Suburbia.
It would be a cool way to let more people know about this website too.