Beyond Hostas: Native Plants for Shade

(Oak Park, IL) West Cook Wild Ones will host a program titled "Beyond Hostas: Native Plants for Shade" presented by Patricia Hill, author of Design Your Natural Native midwest gardenMidwest Garden on Sunday, July 20, from 2:30 to 4:30p.m. The program takes place in Lewis Hall at Dominican University (7900 W. Division, in River Forest). This program is free and open to the public.

In this program, award-winning garden designer and author Patricia Hill tackles the difficult, dark and dry conditions often found in shady areas of a home landscape. These are the spaces underneath dense maple trees, on the north side of homes and other hard to plant places where grass, most annuals and other sun- and moisture-loving plants can't thrive. Out of desperation, many people turn to dependable hostas, those ubiquitous, variegated-leaved, purple flowering summer staples. But Hill has other tricks up her sleeve...beautiful, hardy, native plants that are uniquely suited to shade.

Gardening with native species is low-maintenance, good for the environment, and yields stunning results. Hill shows you how to combine varieties that are perfect for the soils and climates of the upper Midwest into beautiful combinations for every space around your home.

Patricia Hill is a professional landscape designer who specializes in designs featuring only native species. Her work has been featured in a variety of regional and national gardening and landscaping publications. She won "Best of Show" for an exhibit garden she designed for the 2000 Chicago Flower and Garden Show.

In her book, Design Your Natural Midwest Garden, Patricia Hill draws on more than 25 years of experience to present readers with an easy-to-follow and beautifully illustrated instructional guide to gardening with native species. The results are gardens that are low-maintenance and good for the environment while simply lovely in appearance and perfect for upper Midwestern soils and climates.

The designs are organized around Entrance Gardens; Patios and Terraces; Specialty Gardens (including the very popular Butterfly Garden); Borders; Hillsides; Woodlands; and Water Gardens. The concluding chapter provides advice on planning a Prairie Garden.

Contact: Pam Todd, pamtodd5@me.com  or  Debby Preiser, dpreiser@oppl.org or (708) 366-1475

Wild Ones is a national organization with its roots in the Midwest.

For more information about West Cook Wild Ones or this presentation, please contact Pam Todd, President, (pamtodd5@me.com) or Stephanie Walquist, Program Director, (swalquist@gmail.com).

https://www.facebook.com/wildoneswestcook http://westcook.wildones.org/