Property transfers p. B10
July 14, 2021
Homes
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ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer
KEEP ON GROWING: Judy Klem started out small but eventually converted her entire front yard and parkway along Division Street into a garden filled with native plants.
Not your mother’s garden West Cook Wild Ones showcase native gardens in July 24 tour By LACEY SIKORA
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Contributing Reporter
he West Cook chapter of Wild Ones, is holding its annual garden walk on Saturday, July 24 from 1 to 5 p.m. The walk, which celebrates, birds, bees and butterflies, will include eight gardens in Oak Park, River Forest, Forest Park
and Berwyn. During the walk, host gardeners will be on hand to give guided overviews of their gardens and answer questions about native gardening, sustainable landscaping, edible gardening, DIY versus professional designers and urban homesteading. This year, West Cook Wild Ones is celebrating the year of the butterfly, and the walk aims to give participants practical information they can use in their own yards to attract and nurture butterflies, create yearround beauty, grow their own food and fight climate change. One of the gardeners, Candace Blank, says
her garden is living proof that anyone can grow a native garden. When she moved into her home in Berwyn in 1990, she says that all she did was mow her lawn. Around 2006, she said, “I finally decided to do something. I always liked plants, so I hired a landscaper who recommended an English garden and a butterfly garden because they looked pretty. I didn’t know anything then about natives.” She joined the national chapter of Wild Ones, a nonprofit formed “to promote environmentally sound landscaping practices to preserve biodiversity through the preservation, restoration and establishment of native plant communities,” and learned about
the importance of planting native pollinators one garden at a time. Shortly thereafter, the West Cook chapter of Wild Ones opened. “I learned more from their programs, added more natives to my garden and became a convert,” Blank said. Since then, she’s served on the board of West Cook Wild Ones and has transformed her yard. What started out as a plan to make her yard pretty turned into something with more meaning. Climate change and the collapse of habitats for insects and birds mean See WILD ONES on page B5
July 14, 2021 ■ Wednesday Journal/Forest Park Review
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