My first post is going to be about my backyard and the neighborhood I grew up in. I had a very quick visit back home this weekend to attend the wedding of one of my best friends. Coming home to the midwest amidst a summer in the desert is so entertaining because it makes you appreciate everything taken for granted while you are a midwestern resident: summer rainstorms, the shade of big green trees, vegetables fresh from the garden. While the desert heat parches the Sonoran and the springtime cactus blooms fade away, the midwest is in its summer prime. I had a chance to sit out in my backyard and enjoy being surrounded by my family, dogs, and shades of green everywhere, all while being 30 degrees cooler than Arizona without the stresses of grad school. It was a great day.
One of my favorite spots in our garden is somewhere I spent a good chunk of my first afternoon home, a patch of Russian Sage along the side of the house. Russian Sage isn't a native plant, it was introduced from central Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet) but it thrives very well in the climate of the Chicago suburbs. It grows about chest high and is covered in pale purple flowers that have a strong but pleasant odor. We can always tell when the dogs have been running through the Russian Sage because they bring the smell right in with them. This plant thrives in full sun and is very adaptable to dry soils which makes it a good choice for xeriscaping. It's also resistant to deer grazing as well as many diseases making it a reliable and low maintenance choice for the garden. However, my favorite thing about Russian Sage is the fact that bees LOVE it. Everyday we see hundreds of bees dashing through the patch of Russian Sage visiting the many flowers. My sister let me borrow her camera and I spent the better part of an hour just watching (I can't wait to become a beekeeper as soon as I finish grad school!).
After letting the bees be I took a short ride down to the end of our block to a retention basin that we call "the pond". The pond has been a big part of my life since I was a little kid. We would go there to fish for bluegill and bass, catch frogs, climb trees, and feed ducks and geese. When I was little, the pond was little more than a drainage pit surround by mowed grass. However, in 2006 the Village of Algonquin transformed "the pond" into "the Lake Drive South Naturalized Stormwater Facility", which means they quit mowing the perimeter of the pond, planted native plants, and restored the area to create a more natural environment. This has made the pond an awesome place to go to see wildflowers such as Purple Coneflowers, Black Eyed Susan, Wild Bergamot, and Purple Prairie Clover. It makes me so happy to see native planting and prairie restoration becoming more and more popular, especially among municipalities and organizations with access to large chunks of land. According to the US Forest Service, of the original 21 million acres of prairie in Illinois, only 0.01% remains unaltered by farming and urban development. With no mountains or other natural barriers to development and some of the most fertile soil in the country there was not much to slow the destruction of prairies in the early 1800s when Illinois became a state. The ideas of conserving nature for the sake of conservation and recreation wouldn't begin until 50 years later with the formation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872. Can you imagine how beautiful the prairies of this state must have looked hundreds of years ago?
While my visit was short and I was only able to spend a short amount of time outside, it did make me realize how much we tend to take the environment we grow up in for granted. For me it took moving 1800 miles away to a whole new ecosystem to remind myself how beautiful the midwest is and how much I can't wait to get back to experience so many of the things I have taken for granted.
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