we've got yards that work!

---

Get Ready to Be Inspired!

Winnetka Yards Go Back to Nature

Go Green Winnetka is hosting its fifh Yards That Work Sustainable Yard Tour on Sunday, July 13 from 10 am – 2 pm. This is not just another pretty yard tour! The tour will feature four yards and is designed to spark the imagination and show the possibilities of sustainable living in your own backyard.

What to Expect:

• Beautiful Native Plants: See how local flora supports birds and pollinators.
• Fruit & Veggie Gardens: Discover the true meaning of farm-to-table with homegrown produce.
• Rain Barrels & Bioswales: Learn clever ways to manage stormwater.
• Home Compost Systems: Turn kitchen scraps into garden gold!

Tour hosts will share their experiences and wisdom, showing off what works for them and hopefully inspiring others with ideas to make their own yards a sustainable paradise. From new projects just starting out to a three-acre Backyard Flower Lab, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

Tour Details:

• Four Yards: Find out how different homeowners approach sustainable gardening.
• Free & Self-Guided: Explore at your own pace.
• Rain or Shine: We're on, no matter the weather!

Pre-registration requested.  Addresses and a map will be available below.

Let’s make our world more sustainable, one yard at a time! 

Nancy Riddle wanted the landscaping around her 1896 historic schoolhouse to reflect a natural, prairie-style look with low-maintenance. She prefers to let nature “do its thing,” only keeping the prolific wild onions in check—a nod to the area's history, as “Shikaakwa,” the Native word for wild onion, inspired the name Chicago.

With the yard being filled with pollinator plants and a bird bath, she and her German Shepherd, Bella, enjoy watching birds, bees, and butterflies visit the yard. They’ve even spotted an eagle—twice—hunting in the backyard!

Nancy’s home, once a fanning mill, later became the Montessori Schoolhouse, owned by Dorothy Sears, daughter of Joseph Sears. According to the biography Joseph Sears and his Kenilworth, a family friend once arrived with a wheelbarrow full of trillium, Mertensia, Jack-in-the-Pulpits, and peonies for Dorothy’s garden—plants Nancy plans to reintroduce. 

Inspired by the nearby lake, Nancy added beachy touches to the backyard with grasses, native plants, Allium, Woodland Sage, and Boston Ivy and lots of pea gravel. The ferns, mint, and Great Indian Plantains were original to the property.

Nancy's yard was designed by Nature's Perspective and installed by R & L Landscaping.

Scan the QR code below to learn more about the landscaping plan and the historical house. 

Christina and Michael Collins won the Winnetka Environmental, Forestry, and Sustainability Commission's Green Award because they turned the back portion of their normal-sized lot into an oasis for birds and critters. Please stop by to get ideas that anyone, with any size lot, can adopt.

Christina was motivated by the local news about steps being taken to increase native habitat and realized she could help. During Covid she added a number of native varietals along the driveway and in a small memorial garden. She was delighted with the increase in sightings of songbirds and of predators, including regular visitations by a Cooper's Hawk, a pair of Great Horned Owls, and a young Red Fox. So last fall, she decided to tear up the sod in the back half of her yard and add a native plant area designed to provide critters and birds with shelter, native food sources available throughout the year, and a water source (that will be added soon). 

Their landscaper, Mariani, designed the space and planted the larger plants last fall and the smaller plants in the early spring.

The Collins's also replaced their large roof with one made of recycled tires. This roof will last for fifty years, then it will recycle again.

Says Christina, "We are trying to do our part." We think they're succeeding!

In 2022, after living at the corner of Tower and Prospect for 28 years, Betsy and Barry decided to “deconstruct” their home to build a new home on the same property where they could continue to “age in place.” Although there were many lovely aspects of their hundred-year-old house, there was no feasible plan for renovation that would have allowed the house to approach modern energy-efficiency standards—it was an energy sieve. They were determined to build a new home that would allow them to incorporate a variety of environmentally positive measures—reducing their carbon footprint, promoting recycling, focusing on sustainability, emphasizing landscaping with native plants and good water management—and which would still fit in with the neighborhood. 

They also wanted to ensure that the demolition of their existing home was carried out in the most responsible manner possible. The “deconstruction” allowed virtually everything to be reused or recycled. As the house was painstakingly taken apart over an eight-week period, they donated truckloads of materials (everything from cabinets and countertops, to appliances, to doors and hardware, to huge piles of beautiful hardwood, with nails removed, ready for reuse) to a charity that has used those materials to build and refurbish low-income residences.

Since they moved into their new home only a year and a half ago, their landscaping is still very much a work in progress. They designed their new house to conserve more green space, building well under the size limits for a structure on their property. Neither of them is an avid or experienced gardener, but they wanted to create a landscape with many native plants that will attract pollinators, shelter birds, and be low maintenance and sustainable. Very recently they added two raised garden beds that will allow them to grow vegetables and herbs (despite arthritis), and they installed soaker hoses to facilitate watering. 

Betsy and Barry decided to deal with stormwater management on their property by creating a swale, incorporating native plants and natural rocks. Although the rainwater runoff from their property is all directed into the swale, it is designed with many permeable layers so that it does not retain standing water even in the heaviest downpours. The water filters into the ground, reducing the impact on the village’s stormwater system.

With time, the growth of the plantings among the rocks will soften the swale’s

appearance, transforming it into a rain garden. The swale is a very prominent feature, which draws considerable attention and questions from community members who are interested to hear about the benefits of swales and rain gardens.

Among other sustainable features of their new home, they have no natural gas connection. They are using heat pumps for heating and air conditioning, an induction cooktop, and many other energy-efficient electric appliances. They have installed energy efficient windows, and thorough insulation to prevent energy leakage. They have even opted for a fireplace that burns isopropyl alcohol gel cartridges, which give off only water vapor when burned and require no chimney, thus preventing energy waste. A roof was installed made of recycled plastic synthetic roofing, designed to resemble cedar shingles. The shingles are not only made of recycled material, but they are also recyclable, so that they will never contribute to waste in a landfill. They have several rain chains in the place of downspouts, which help slow the runoff of water from the gutters and disburse it.

Finally, they installed solar panels last fall, and are now generating significant amounts of electricity (sometimes twice their daily use, so they are sending a lot of power back to the grid).

Scott Byron Landscaping will be on hand to discuss all the sustainability features of the yard.

April and Russell Potterfield have slowly transformed their property into a yard that works for them.  For years, Russell worked to transform a neglected three-acre property, with a clay tennis court and other run-down features, into a property with an orchard of over a hundred fruit trees, a meadow planted with many natives, and a more formal cutting and vegetable garden.

In 2022, they decided to increase the cut flowers they grow and decrease the vegetables.  They found themselves missing many of the harvests because of their travel schedule so changed out many of the veggies for things like dahlias, zinnias, celosia, etc. In August of 2022, they had so many cut flowers blooming that they started sharing flowers and produce with food pantries. They gave away over 1600 pounds of produce from their yard, as well as more than 700 flower bouquets between August 29, 2022, and the frost of the same year. 

This was the beginning of The Backyard Flower Lab which experiments in sharing the fruits and flowers of the garden.  In 2024, the nonprofit organization Backyard Flower Friends was formed. They like to think of themselves as “Your local B.F.F.” Backyard Flower Friends has delivered flowers to community centers, head start programs, homeless shelters, laundromats, domestic violence shelters, food pantries, senior centers, and other community organizations. To date, they have delivered 11,033 flower bouquets and 3,508 pounds of produce.