The overgrown plants in the circular flower bed at the Homewood Public Library have been transplanted to make way for a new variety of Illinois prairie plants.
Library Director Colleen Waltman said the board recognized that something needed to be done about the plants that draped over the walkway and hid the statute of a boy and girl reading.
“The discussions about building on the extant native landscaping on the property began last year when we investigated the possibility of getting a landscaping service knowledgeable about natives,” said Adrienne River, the board president. “I approached the University of Illinois Extension to see if they could help us formulate a plan. We are thrilled that they could help us.”
Nancy Kreith, a horticulturist with U of I Extension based in Matteson, worked with volunteers and master gardeners Oct. 27 on their task of cleaning out, digging up and replanting several varieties of plants from the circular garden at the front door to the south side of the library.
Kreith said the plant collection in the circle “was quite big for that small space. Some were 10 to 15 feet and did tend to flop and were barriers to the walkway.”
Waltman gathered about 15 volunteers from Homewood-Flossmoor High School and interested patrons, and Krieth got three master gardeners to join her for the gardening effort. She said having that many people available made the task much easier and shortened the expected time for the project from two to three days to just two hours.
“We had great weather, great help. Digging deep-rooted prairie plants is not easy so that crew we had was just amazing,” Kreith said. “Shout out to the Homewood people. They really came out for us, along with the master gardeners.”
River, who is a gardener at her house, joined the volunteer crew. She said volunteers felt “we all learned a lot working with the University of Illinois Extension Service and the master-gardener volunteers.”
River said the master gardeners helped with “identifying plants in the flowerbed, explaining the characteristics of different plants, and touching upon principles of plant design.”
“In an initial walk around, stewardship coordinator Val Kehoe identified invasive buckthorn plants on the property that we have since removed,” River said. “On the transplanting day, the volunteers transplanted the very large native plants, such as prairie dock and cup plant, that were taking over the front bed, to available spots in the strip of land on the south of the property.”
Kreith said she met with and took suggestions from the library board on what plants they’d like to see in the space.
“I let people bring out design elements that will perform well in that space and be a showstopper. What we plan for is continuous bloom for our pollinators,” she said. “We like to have at least three things in bloom and that’s really like early spring, mid-spring, late spring and for summer and fall. Some natives will bloom for four weeks, some you can get up to eight weeks of bloom.”
The low-profile plants will be Illinois native plants. Kreith doesn’t expect them to stand more than four feet tall.
River said the library board is considering adding signs to indicate the name of the plants and to present programming to educate the public about the benefits of restoring native plant habitat.
Kreith said the Homewood library board initially asked about joining the Forest Preserves of Cook County Conservation at Home program. She works in conjunction with that initiative that “encourages people to use sustainable landscape practices in their homes and it’s expanded to community and school gardens.” She will encourage the library to work on other segments of the Conservation at Home program, including composting on site and water conservation.