Do more good with your garden. Thank you to everyone who joined us at this year's in-person Native Plant Sale on May 17–18, 2025. You can still shop from home and have plants shipped to your door through our online sale.
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Education Programs
Interested in expanding your knowledge about native plants? Attend one of our programs today!
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Why Plant Native Species?
You can choose from a variety of native ferns, flowers, herbaceous plants, shrubs or woody plants suited to almost any property. Native plants are beautiful, less expensive, easy to maintain and beneficial to the environment. They thrive in Illinois yards and gardens.
Browse our native landscaping resources
Conservation@Home
The Chicago region’s popular, eco-friendly lawn and garden program is available in Lake County. If you’re looking for tips to get started with native landscaping, Openlands can assess your property and offer advice. Some fees apply.
Grow Your Garden
In the U.S., more than 40 million acres of land are covered by lawn. To be sure, turfgrass produces oxygen and absorbs carbon dioxide just like other plants. It prevents soil erosion by wind and water. It creates curb appeal—a neutral, nearly universal surface.
But lawns crowd out the many gorgeous, hardy, unique native plants that call Illinois and other parts of the country home. Most grasses used in lawns were imported. Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis) isn’t from the American South; it hails from Europe, Asia and northern Africa. Native animals don’t use it for food and shelter. The lawn may as well be an ecological dead zone.
There’s a solution: landscaping with native plants. Here’s your guide to getting started.
Interested in hearing more about Lake County's nature and history? Listen in on our podcast Words of the Woods.
LAKE COUNTY SEED COLLECTION GUIDE
Produced by Kelly Schultz and Dale Shields
Photography by Dale Shields
Collecting native seeds is fun! The Lake County Seed Collection Guide is an illustrated guide for seed collectors throughout the Chicago region. The book provides color photographs and descriptions of nearly 600 species of plants in seed, organized by season, habitat and growth form. The guide was designed and written for anyone to pick up and enjoy.
View a snapshot of 60 species to the right as you prepare for the Native Plant Sale.
Proceeds from sales benefit the Forest Preserves’ volunteer program.
View the Guide Purchase a Guide