Have you heard the news? Keeler Gardens has won a grant to build a pollinator habitat! The Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation has awarded us up to $10,000 toward the creation of a native pollinator habitat to provide environmental education opportunities for students, and all community members. We will offer visitors to the habitat an experience with Illinois native plants in a year-round refuge for pollinators, that will perform from early spring through late fall. Here is a before image of the space we will be preparing this spring for installation, hopefully, early this summer.

We are so excited and are moving forward rapidly. The first step is a design. We created this preliminary design and await approval. All plantings are label by number. “E” plants are already part of the space, and will be incorporated into the habitat design. New plantings are color coded by season, purple for early bloom, grey for mid-season bloom, and yellow for late blooms. Greens denote grasses (light) or shrubs (dark). Outlines indicate the height of full grown plants from thin (12” minimum height) to thick (4-6 ft maximum height).

Also included in the design are proposed structures like boulders, benches, water features, and trellises. Stone will be used for edging and as steppers, and will be added at installation to accommodate the design as it evolves.

Here are a few of the plants we hope to include, with their identifying number referenced on the design:

3 Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)

5 Cream Wild False Indigo (Baptisia leucophaea (bracteata var. leucophaea) (NGN))

6 Foxglove Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis (NGN))

7 White Wild Indigo (Baptisia leucantha (NGN))

8 Common Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis (NGN))

15 Kobold Gayfeather (Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’)

16 Rose (Swamp) Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata (NGN))

17 Common Ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata (NGN))

18 Culver’s Root (Veronicastrum virginicum (NGN))

19 Anise Hyssop (Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’)

20 Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica (NGN))

21 Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)

22 Bottle Gentian (Gentiana andrewsii)

23 Turtlehead (Chelone glabra (NGN))

24 Prairie Dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis)

25 Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

26 Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)

27 Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea (NGN))

28 Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis (NGN))

29 Monkey Flower (Mimulus ringens (NGN))

30 Violet Bush Clover (Lespedeza violacea (NGN))

31 Switch Grass (Panicum virgatum (NGN))

32 Pasture Rose (Rosa carolina (NGN))

33 American Hazelnut (Corylus americana)

34 Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis (NGN))

35 Serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea)

We will continue to report on progress with the project, community events in support of the effort, with updates throughout the spring and summer. Follow us here on our blog, on our Facebook Page, and sign up for our newsletter to stay in touch.