Native Prairie Resources for Professional Landscape Designers

The Association of Professional Landscape Designers ®

Midwest Region

Prairies and Natural Landscapes

From July through September native prairies are at their best. Visiting them will reward you with an understanding of how Black-Eyed Susan, Purple Coneflower, Blazing Star, Coreopsis and many others were growing before gardeners and designers discovered them. Less than .01 percent of natural prairie currently remains in Illinois. Similar percentages exist in nearby states. Use of native plants in landscape design requires designers to be intimate with the growth needs and characteristics of a large palette of native plant material.

Below you'll find links to natural prairies and landscapes in and around the area. Additional sites may be submitted to webmaster.

Please report difficulty with any links to webmaster

Prairies

Indian Boundary Prairies - 157th St. & Whipple Ave., Markham, IL
Around 300 acres of high quality grasslands in 4 parcels with Indian Grass, little bluestem, big bluestem, cord grass, bluejoint grass and sedges. Overseen through The Nature Conservancy.

West Chicago Prairie - Industrial and Hawthorn Drives, West Chicago, IL
Around 300 acres of preserved and restored habitats, declared as Illinois Nature Preserve. Contains short grass and wet-mesic examples and includes plants such as prairie dock, false dragonhead, nodding onion, tall coreopsis and prairie sunflower. Map courtesy of Forest Preserve District of DuPage County

Ashburn Prairie - 67th St and Kedzie Ave, Marquette Park, IL
3.5 acres of preserved prairie on Chicago's southwest side that hosts nodding wild onion, ladies tresses and obedient plant. Under the care of Chicago Park District.

Wolf Road Prairie - 31st St. and Wolf Road, Westchester, IL
80 acres of black soil prairie containing the likes of hoary puccoon, rattlesnake master and shooting star. Contains the Franzosenbusch Prairie House as a nature center and history museum. Evening hikes available.

Schulenberg Prairie - The Morton Arboretum, 4100 Route 53 · Lisle, IL
100 acres named after Ray Schulenberg, its creator. One of the Chicago areas finest examples of restored prairies. 45-minute guided tours available in August. Plant museum,

Somme Prairie Grove - Waukegan Rd. North of Dundee Rd., Northbrook, IL
90 acres of preserved and restored habitat. Main feature is the oak savanna that contains widely spaced oak trees amid prairie plants common to Illinois over 500 years ago. Contain part of the Deerfield Moraine a ridge of rocks and soil left behind by glacial movement.

Additional information available from these Commercial Firms;

Midwest Prairies, LLC
Wild Ones - Natural Landscapers, LTD
Prairie Nursery Inc.

and these Architects / Landscape Architecture Firms;
Terry Guen Design Associates (Millennium Park)

Books
"Prairie Directory of North America"
Charlotte Adelman and Bernard L. Schwartz
Lawndale Enterprises, 354 pages, $19.95

"Peterson Field Guides: The North American Prairie"
Stephen R. Jones and Ruth Carol Cushman
Houghton Mifflin, 528 pages, $30

"Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers: A field Guide to Common Wildflowers and Plants of the Prairie Midwest"
Doug Ladd
Falcon Guides Wildflowers, 272 Pages, $22.95

Industry Organizations / Magazines
Chicago Wilderness - a consortium of organizations and institutions dedicated to preserving and uniting the regions natural areas.
Wild Ones - Wild Ones is a not-for-profit environmental education and advocacy organization
Save The Prairie Society - a non-profit organization of dedicated volunteers that partners with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County and the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission to promote and protect natural resources within Illinois.

More Information from the EPA
State Resources Fact Sheets on native plants. These documents are in Portable Document Format (PDF) only.