Greater DuPage Chapter Events

In the middle of Winter, Cindy Crosby will remind us of what Spring looks like!

Nothing beats a burst of vibrant wildflower color in mid-January! Discover tales of our earliest spring blooms, their folklore, and how they were used by Native Americans and early settlers. All the favorites are here: trillium, spring beauties, Virginia bluebells, and more. Let these Illinois wildflowers inspire you to bring a touch of their beauty to your own garden.

In this special collaboration, Robin Wall Kimmerer, author, botanist, and founder of Plant Baby Plant, joins youth leader and Nurture Natives founder Esther Bonney for an intergenerational conversation about belonging, reciprocity, and native plant action. 

Together, they will explore questions such as:

How do we create opportunities for young people to have a voice and feel empowered, even when they are not homeowners or decision makers?What kinds of relationships and mentorships help people stay engaged in native plant work over decades?Why do stories, shared practices, and community invitations matter just as much as plant lists?

Robin and Esther will reflect on what invites people into this work, what keeps them here, and what elders and youth have to teach each other.

Join us at Wild Things 2026 for an exciting lineup of workshops, presentations, and sessions from regional and national experts, plus meet & greets, video content, exhibitors, sponsors, and more! 

Our upcoming webinar with Basil Camu explores practical, evidence based ways to heal suburban and urban landscapes by working with trees, soil, and natural systems, drawing on real world practices from Leaf & Limb and community centered models for restoring life where we live, work, and play.!  

Gardens are special places where people enjoy and connect with nature. Taking a close look at the flowers reveals they’re alive with wildlife. The Buzz in Your Garden is an introduction to the many pollinating bees making essential contributions to the health and productivity of gardens and ecosystems. You’ll gain a new appreciation for how people and bees are helping each other while peacefully working and living side by side.

This program is a presentation from the DuPage Monarch Program.  Greater DuPage Wild Ones is one of four founding partners of DMP.  Instead of our normal meeting for February, we are joining with the local Sierra Club, DuPage Forest Preserve District, and The Conservation Foundation in viewing this program.  Be sure to register early!

Join Joey Santore, creator of Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t, for a candid Wild Ones National Webinar examining how inherited garden aesthetics shape native plant landscapes. Drawing on field experience and real ecology, Joey challenges tidy design norms and explores why dense, irregular plant communities are often the most resilient and ecologically sound.

They light up our summer evenings and create a sense of wonder and awe. Join Carol Elkins, Xerces Society Ambassador, as she explores the world of fireflies, their life histories, threats, and simple actions you can take to help conserve them. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation is an international nonprofit organization that protects the natural world through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats. 

Since 2022, Carol has served as an active Ambassador for The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, delivering conservation programs on pollinators, monarch butterflies, and fireflies.   Professionally, Carol is the Conservation Program Specialist for the Geneva Lake Conservancy, where she manages their Conservation@Home and Keep It Blue programs. She works closely with private homeowners, homeowner associations, businesses, and schools, providing guidance and ecological best practices to restore and enhance native habitat for people, water, and wildlife.  Personally, Carol has been working closely with native plants, with a focus on the benefits and relationships to wildlife, for over three decades.

Our annual Potluck Dinner is the social event of the year.  This year we will be at the Winfield Park District Recreation Center.  The building is on County Farm Road, about 1 mile north of Roosevelt Road, and is on the west side of the street.  If you are coming from the south, it is just before you get to Jewell Road.   

Bring a dish to share.  You will need your own place settings and whatever you would like to drink (non-alcoholic).  

If you need a heating plate or crock-pot, there will be outlets to plug into, but we will not have use of a stove.

Join award-winning author, photographer, and educator Rick Darke for What Is Wild and Why It Matters, a free national webinar on Tuesday, April 28th at 10 am CT. Discover how inviting a bit of authentic wildness can create a vibrant landscape that sustains you and local biodiversity. This national event is presented in collaboration between Wild Ones and Homegrown National Park.

We are helping form a new Wild Ones Chapter in Will County.  For anyone that lives in or near Will County, this Organizational Meeting is your opportunity to have input on the activities and priorities of the new chapter.

If you plan to come to this, please tell us you’re coming so we can give Bishops Hill a good head count. Send email to: [email protected]

The 2.9 acre lot allows a variety of habitats.  There is a small creek on the south side and a little bridge leading to prairie and a border of trees and shrubs.  North of the house there’s a rain garden, open space and some interesting shrubs and trees.  

Park in the parkway along Essex and walk through the gate (please close behind you).  NOTE: A BYO picnic will take place at noon, so if you are inclined, bring your own food and drink and join in conversation at the tables that will be set up.

(The weather looks to be beautiful.  No rain in sight.)

Hosts Denise and Frank’s landscaping journey began when they purchased their first house in the 90’s with no landscaping, just boring lawn. Denise believes she was destined to garden with native plants after later learning the “weeds” her grandmother rescued for her garden from Chicago’s industrial railroad tracks, were native plants. Denise’s re-introduction to native plants began by volunteering with Russell Kirt, taking courses with Pat Armstrong, and joining Wild Ones.   

Denise and Frank have converted most of their ¼ acre yard to native plants. They created a prairie garden, garden rooms, woodland gardens in a once sunny yard, and rain gardens. They installed permeable hardscapes, a front deck made of recycled materials, compost bins, rain barrel, and run-off infiltration at all downspouts. They just renovated their 30-year-old patio by re-using their existing pavers.  

They will host a guided tour between 10:15AM and 11:00 on June 20 (Rain Date: June 27).  Yard will close at 12:30pm.  There will also be a few landscape items for sale like books, plants, and pots. Part of the proceeds will be donated to the nearby Naperville Humane Society.

This is a corner house, so you may park on either Allister or Claymore.

You planted native. Your neighbor has opinions. Maybe your HOA does too. If you’ve ever felt like the hardest part of native plant gardening is the conversations, not the gardening, you’re not alone.

Wild Ones is thrilled to share this upcoming free webinar as part of the 2026 Less Lawn More Life Challenge. Join Lorraine Johnson for a practical conversation on navigating HOA rules, addressing neighbor concerns, and fostering community conversations about native plant gardening and ecological landscapes.

The native planting and restoration started about 30 years ago.  There is approximately an acre of native forbs and grasses that are home to over 150 species of native plants.  Visiting all the areas and walking all the paths might take you a couple of hours.  There are tall and short grass prairies and a woodland.  In front of the house, both sides of the roadside have been planted with natives.

Feel free to bring a friend that may be interested in natural areas or restoration.  This is a free event, and all are welcome.

You are invited to stay for a BYO picnic at Noon and conversation.  Tables, chairs and drinks will be provided.

Park in the driveway area or on the north side of Childs Street (but not on the plants).

Join Wendy and Roger Vernon for a tour of their yard and see how it has evolved since the 2019 Wild Ones tour.

Since planting their first native plants in 2017, they have gradually replaced much of their lawn with a diverse landscape that now includes more than 100 species of native plants, along with herbs, fruits, and vegetables. Their gardens provide habitat for birds, pollinators, and other wildlife, all while being maintained without pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic fertilizers.

The landscape has been created over time using a combination of winter-sown seedlings grown from seeds obtained through the Greater DuPage Wild Ones seed exchange, native plants purchased from plant sales and nurseries, and plants shared by friends. Come see what is possible on a small 0.20-acre lot and gather ideas for creating your own native plant garden.

There will also be some light snacks and people are welcome to hang out and talk afterwards.

Native plants are the foundation of habitat, but wildlife need more than food to thrive. Join ecologist and Certified Wildlife Biologist Shaun McCoshum, PhD, to explore how nesting sites, shelter, water, soil conditions, and other often-overlooked resources can transform a yard into a functioning ecosystem that supports biodiversity year-round.

What does it really take to turn a conventional lawn into a thriving native meadow? Join Owner & Principal, New Directions in the American Landscape (NDAL), Sara Weaner Cooper for a candid look at her family's ongoing lawn-to-meadow transformation featured in The New York Times and BBC. Drawing from three years of hands-on experience, Sara will share the methods, lessons learned, successes, and challenges of converting turfgrass into a dynamic native plant community. Participants will gain practical insights into site preparation, planting, management, and the ecological principles that guide successful meadow establishment, along with realistic expectations for how these landscapes evolve over time.

Registration link coming soon.

Join Brittany Rogness from the Illinois Bat Conservation Program to explore the fascinating bats of Illinois. Learn about their benefits, the challenges they face, conservation efforts, and ways you can help bats in your own backyard. Brittany will also discuss bat acoustics and demonstrate the equipment researchers use to study bats. Weather permitting, we'll head outside to listen for bats.

We tend to think of darkness as something to overcome. But in Nature, darkness isn't a problem to solve; it's part of the rhythm of life.

Bats and owls need it. Plants respond to it. Our own bodies are shaped by it. And without darkness, we would never see the stars.

In this talk, Sarah Woodard invites us to look at darkness differently, not as the absence of something, rather as a necessary part of a living world. Together, we'll explore what Nature's rhythms can teach us about our own need for rest, contrast, uncertainty, and the seasons when we can't yet see what's coming next.

Because sometimes, the dark isn't where the light disappears.

It's where we learn to see it.

Sarah will weave together Nature, observation, story, and the human experience of belonging to the living world, offering a different way of thinking about our relationship with both Nature and ourselves.

Sarah will have her book for sale and sign copies at the conclusion of the meeting.

Bio: Sarah Woodard is an Experiential Nature-Based Perception Guide, speaker, author of The Language Before Words, and founder of Wisdom Grove. She weaves together wonder, presence, and the quiet wisdom of Nature to help people rediscover belonging through the practice of noticing.

Through guided Nature experiences, speaking, writing, and photography, Sarah invites people to slow down, reconnect with themselves, and remember that they are part of the living world—not separate from it.

Bats are among the most important and misunderstood wildlife in our communities. Join experts from Bat Conservation International to explore how native plants, healthy insect populations, and thoughtful landscape design can help support bats. Learn about the ecological role of bats and discover practical ways to create habitat for North America's night flyers right in your own backyard.

Come celebrate a beautiful Fall Day at the recently completed DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center. Meet at the Picnic Shelter for refreshments, then explore both the visitor center and the restored natural area behind it.

Everyone is welcome to this free event.  If the weather is not so nice, we will still have a welcome table beneath the shelter, and you can still see the inside of the very informative visitor center.  Dress for the weather if you intend to walk the natural area.

As an added bonus for anyone that is a paid-up member of Greater DuPage Wild Ones, a behind-the-scenes tour of the Conservation Center is offered. A Notice to Register will be sent to members on October 17.  Because the tour group must be kept to a reasonable size, everyone that registers may not be able to get on a tour.  

For anyone that is not currently a member, please do so (or renew) before the Notice to Register goes out. Only Members receiving the Notice will get the information needed to register.  Registration will be open until the maximum number of tour slots are filled.

Start saving seeds now and join us for the much-anticipated Greater DuPage Wild Ones Annual Seed Exchange and Chapter Meeting, hosted at The Growing Place in Aurora! This event is a favorite among our members and friends, and it is an excellent opportunity to connect, share seeds and valuable information. We encourage everyone to save seeds in preparation for this gathering. 

Schedule
10:00 am - 10:30 am: If you are bringing seeds or items to donate, please arrive prior to the start of the event. This helps avoid confusion caused by seeds getting set out at the same time seeds are being removed. The more seeds you bring, the earlier you should arrive. (Thank You!)
Hand your seeds or donation items to our volunteers at the Welcome Table to get placed in the appropriate category, then please enjoy exploring The Growing Place or visit with other attendees (outside, if it is nice), until we are ready to start the meeting portion of the day.
10:30 am: START

10:30 am - 10:45am: Membership Meeting and Elections
All members are invited to attend our Chapter Membership Meeting, which will precede the Seed Exchange. Officer elections will take place during this time. The meeting will be brief.
10:45am - Noon: Seed "Shopping" 
Explore the variety of seeds available for exchange. Bring envelopes to take away seeds you select. Please respect that others are looking for seed too and do not take more than a fair share. If you wish to take a large quantity, wait until the end and you can take whatever is remaining.

How the Exchange Works
Bring your own native harvested seeds to the Seed Exchange and take seeds brought by other enthusiasts. Don't worry if you don't have seeds to trade; you can make a nominal donation in exchange for bringing seeds. Here is a list of the species that we exchanged in recent years. To see some tips on seed collecting go to our Seed Harvest page.

Labeling and Packaging Seeds
Clean your seeds by removing them from stems, leaves, and fluff. Package seeds in envelopes or paper bags, clearly labeling them with Latin and common names, description, color of the flower, time of bloom, plant height, and best planting location.  Print copies of our Seed Labels Template (Microsoft Word Format) or Seed Labels Template (PDF Format) to easily label your seeds. 

Silent Auction
We encourage attendees to contribute to our Silent Auction by donating garden-related items like books, posters, art, garden tools, bird feeders, and more. Items should be in good condition and preferably related to native gardening. You can bring items to bid on, buy, or even give away for free.

Note:  Please DO NOT bring live plants that you have dug up to the exchange!

Zoe Evans, rewilding coach and VP of Partnerships & Programs at Wildr shares a practical, science-informed framework for evaluating a home landscape, identifying its greatest habitat opportunities, and choosing actions that support more plants, insects, birds, and other wildlife.

Registration link coming soon.