Focus — The Pros at Home
ILCA Visits Industry Members at Home
Jack Pizzo’s dazzling prairie makes coming home a pleasure
by Nina A. Koziol
In late summer, the gently
rolling landscape around Jack Pizzo’s home in Clare, Illinois, is a medley of blue, violet, gold and white flowering perennials—all native to northeastern Illinois. Big and little bluestem grasses with seedheads shaped like turkey’s feet sway on the breeze. Migrating songbirds and dragonflies dart overhead while scores of butterflies, beetles and bees visit asters in this spectacular prairie that once was a soybean field. While goldfinches pick coneflower seeds,
yellow sulphur butterflies flit around the flowers. Stand amongst the tall compass plants in fall and it feels as if you’re back in 1850 when prairies dominated the state. “The best thing about it is the dynamic nature of the property and how it’s different every year, every month, every hour—it’s never the same,” says Pizzo, whose firm Pizzo & Associates, Ltd. in Leland, has received countless awards for its work, which includes natural areas restoration
The pale t-shaped ground surrounding the house is native buffalo grass.
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The Landscape Contractor December 2021
and management, prescribed fire, invasive species control and sustainable landscaping using native plants. In 2002, he purchased 40 acres of wet farmland, built a house on the highest point, and moved his family from their home in River Forest. Many of the seeds and plants came from Pizzo Native Plant Nursery LLC, in Leland. He also collected seed on his own. The wetlands and fencerows harbored a few remaining native plants: Cordgrass, Rice cutgrass, Carolina Rose, American plum and one
