Creating Harmony With Native Landscaping Conference Presented By Lake to Prairie Wild Ones Chapter

Wild Ones 2014 Creating Harmony With Native Landscaping Conference. Our chapter’s mission is to educate, which we do each month with our monthly meetings covering a wide range of topics. Bringing educators together in one place at this conference will provide a wealth of information for people new to the native plant idea and the practiced native gardener.

A co-dependent relationship exists between the plant and animal world - one cannot live without the other. The circle of life is only possible when our ecosystem is healthy. A tree will not bear fruit without help from pollinators, a butterfly will not take flight without host plants for larvae and a nesting songbird will not have food for her young with out an abundance of nearby larvae and insects dependent on specific native plants.

Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Wilderness Act of 1964 in law saying “If future generations are to remember us with gratitude, rather than contempt, we must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it”.

Plants are the earth’s lifeblood. Through native landscaping, we can build a healthier environment and support the web of life in our own backyards to help restore habitats for the next generation.

Keynote Speaker - Doug Tallamy, PhD - Creating Healthy Neighborhood Corridors - Biodiversity is essential to sustaining human societies because it is other living things that run our ecosystems. Because our yards and gardens are part of the terrestrial ecosystems that sustain humans and the life around us, it is essential that we keep them in working order. Throughout the U.S. we have fragmented the habitats that support biodiversity by the way we have landscape our cities, suburbs and farmland. This is a problem because isolated habitats cannot support populations large enough to survive normal environmental stresses. We can reconnect viable habitats by expanding existing greenways, building riparian corridors and by changing the landscaping paradigm that dominates our yards and corporate landscapes.

Speaker - Ray Wiggers - Gardening With Nature -Don’t be a victim of “landscape Blindness”; be sensitive to our region’s natural patterns and rhythms. You will want to have a pen and paper hand as you listen to Ray Wiggers’s fascination presentation on understanding our regional landscape. We will learn the history of Lake County’s living landscapes, where they stand now, what we’ve done to them and how we can help restore them. He will than introduce a selection of native plants specifically adapted to our prairie/savanna, forest and wetland soil types. These topics and more will be accompanied by the pictorial presentation and group discussion.

Speaker - Trish Beckjord - Wow, Look at That Garden - It is exciting to see that many homeowners are becoming better informed on the idea of sustainable gardens and the value of adding native plants to the garden mix. But, at the same time, knowing how to do it successfully can seem an intimidating task. Trish is a registered landscape architect and specialist in the world of native plants. She is always looking for good examples of using native plants in a garden setting and has a lot of images and experience to share. She will share examples she has assembled from around our region. Her talk will build on the information presented by the previous speakers and tie it all together for those of you who want to take the next step. Come see the types of things you can do in your garden so you can start planning for the spring.

Education Session - David Eubanks - Native Landscaping 101 - Nature, including native plants, birds, insects and animals can exist nicely as an integral part of your home landscape. Whether your yard is small, standard or an acre plus, turf grass need not be the main event but more properly relegated to the backdrop of blazes of four season color and durability of a bio diverse assembly of native trees, shrubs, wildflowers and prairie grasses. Using traditional principles of landscape design Mr. Eubanks will present the basics on getting started with native plants around your home and garden. He will touch on themes you can develop such as rain gardens, butterfly gardens, shade gardens using the right plants and installation techniques. Maintenance requirements will be explained as well. Whether you are a novice gardener or master gardener, this presentation will have information useful for beginners while experts will still learn some new tricks.

Education Session - Judy Speer - Get More From Your Native Landscape with Permaculture - Permaculture is a design process that uses nature’s patterns. This presentation will give you some permaculture tips to help you design your native landscape for habitat, harvest, efficiency and a deeper relationship with nature.

November 15, 2014 - 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM - College of Lake County, Building C - Grayslake, IL

Tickets and more information: http://laketoprairie.wildones.org