Heatherhope Prairie Restoration’s First Glory

Last June was very dry here in Northern Illinois, and so not an ideal time for planting “Pollinator Plus,” a mixture of 44 seeds of native prairie.

We wanted to begin to do what we could to be good to this good land. We wanted to do some “restorative farming.” We wanted to do sustainable agriculture.

But the weather was so dry that we were anxious. I suppose it was a mark of our “little faith” that we worried and fretted for months. It seemed to me that the only thing growing in our two little plots of “Pollinator Plus” was not native, but invasive species, especially those over-ambitious Canadian Thistles, Sow Thistle, White Campion, Hedge Bindweed, Eastern Rocket, etc.

But behold, these days we are treated to the glory that blessed hundreds of generations of the First Nations and early Europeans. Wild Bergamot, Black-eyed Susan, and the most glorious of them all, the Purple Coneflower, and Pinnate Prairie or Gray-headed Coneflower, pictured above.

And I must say, even those invasives have attracted a multitude of pollinators and other insects—and the birds that feast on them.

God is good.