The first ever Native American owned brewery opened in Albuquerque, New Mexico 10 years ago. Ever since, @bowandarrowbrewing has served as an inspiration to many, myself included.
On Saturday, May 9th, I’d love for you all to help welcome my friends, Shyla Sheppard and Missy Begay, co-founders of Bow & Arrow to Chicago as part of the @beerculturecenter ’s annual Summit. We’ll be at @suncatcherbrewing for a conversation about Indigenous culture and place and its influence on American beer and its connections to the Windy City. Matt Gallagher co-founder of Suncatcher and Half Acre Beer Company joins in too.
🍺🚨Beer nerd alert: This is the first time Bow & Arrow beer will be available in Chicago or anywhere east of the Mississippi (or outside of Arizona and New Mexico).
🪴🚨Plant nerd alert: @ccforsman , native plant expert at @cwfarmngarden will be on hand to talk about the beer garden/patio design.
🪩🚨Party nerd alert: A dance party in said patio hosted by DJ @kplay4daze happens right after the discussion.
🎟️ 🔗 👆🏽💃🏽
Winter seeding always feels like a deeply hopeful and generative act of ecological restoration: such a seemingly small intervention in the darkest months, yoking your own patience and intention to the powerful forces of life. Especially during this dark period of history, I'm thankful for the opportunity to do this work.
@whatwouldiwantsky using the weather to overseed a custom native mix into an abandoned right-of-way of the 606 that is becoming a community garden & native prairie restoration (1745 N Francisco Ave). The snow will work the seeds into the slopes and stratify them for spring germination.
🌱 Chicago’s most overlooked garden space is the parkway—here’s why it matters. 🌳
In this extended interview, I sit down with Cooper Forsman of Christy Webber Farm & Garden to unpack the importance of native plants in Chicago parkway gardens. And I talk with Scott Gerwitz, whose pollinator parkway garden just won Best Parkway Garden from the Chicago Bungalow Association. @chicagobungalow
After seeing Scott’s garden, I finally planted my own parkway—and I’m thrilled I did. It looks beautiful, supports pollinators, and my neighbors love it. Before the plants even went in the ground there were bees and butterflies buzzing around them.
Why native plants + Chicago parkway gardens matter: -Attract butterflies, birds & bees back to city blocks who in turn keep our ecosystem going -Help manage stormwater & reduce flooding in Chicago neighborhoods -Thrive in our climate with less watering & upkeep
Would you try a native plant garden in your parkway? Or do you have a favorite one on your block? Let us know!
Full interview is live—watch for inspiration and tips to make your patch of Chicago a pollinator paradise.
#ChicagoNativePlants #PollinatorGardenChicago #ChicagoParkway #UrbanGardeningChicago #SustainableChicago #ChristyWebber #ChicagoBungalow #TheRomoloGroupChicago
Native plants aren’t just pretty—they’re necessary! In this American Dream TV – Chicago episode, I spoke with @ccforsman , native plant expert at @cwfarmngarden , about how native plants benefit pollinators, conserve water, and support local ecosystems.
I also met @morpheusmurals , winner of the @chicagobungalow Association's Best Pollinator Garden Award, to hear why he created his pollinator garden and the impact it’s had on his environment.
These interviews are fascinating and full of important information! Definitely a must watch.
Fully length interviews with even more info to follow this month. Thanks as always to @ararevisual for your work!
#romologroupchicago #atproperties #chicago #christywebberfarmandgarden #chicagobungalowassociation #nativeplant #AmericanDreamTV #ChicagoRealEstate #NativePlants #PollinatorGarden #ChicagoBungalow #SustainableLiving #EcoFriendlyLandscaping #chicagonativeplants
This October felt like enough of a convergence to inspire a post. A few weeks ago I went to visit my mom in Virginia, to help her settle into her new home 30 minutes from where I grew up, and I took the opportunity to go backpacking on the Appalachian Trail the night before I left.
The streams were still high from Helene (still wreaking havoc in communities just 200 miles south), but things dried up as I ascended. As the trail met the ridge, I noticed dozens of American chestnut stump sprouts (photo 3) --- by far the most I've ever seen in one place. These functionally extinct “zombie trees” were once a keystone species here, wiped out in the early 1900s by a nonnative fungus introduced by the global nursery trade. The fungus can’t kill the roots, so once the trunk dies, the tree resprouts in an eternal cycle of false starts --- until it eventually succumbs. The stump sprouts in Three Ridges have been regrowing and getting killed back, repeatedly, for over one hundred years.
That night, I made camp and read “Fire on the Mountain” by Terry Bisson, which presents an alternate history where John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry SUCCEEDS and sets off an alternate Civil War (think Haiti, not Dixie). Rather than being dismissed as a martyr or cautionary tale, Brown and his allies build real, necessary power in the Blue Ridge, backed by the only thing slaveowners understand --- violence. This changes what it MEANS to be an abolitionist, eventually leading to a liberated, Afrosocialist future for the South.
The fact that I was reading this on October 6th, the eve of the anniversary of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in Palestine, was not lost on me. John Brown is still labelled a terrorist, and the monopoly on legitimate violence claimed by white-supremacist imperialism is still deeply enshrined. Reading about this alternate war set in the mountains that I grew up beneath, among the ghosts of trees brought down by settler colonialism, drew sharp parallels for me that were too stark to ignore. Resistance, when tolerated at all, is expected to be persistent and passive --- stump sprouts growing just big enough to get slapped down again.
(cont. in comments)
An "unboxing" of my first crack at air-prune beds. This was a super easy way to get 200 native trees started in a 2'x6' footprint!
#airprune #nativeplantsofnorthamerica #trees
A brief brag & a moment of gratitude. This was my first year grafting selections of the native American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) and so far I've had almost ALL of them take, which I am very proud of as an amateur grafter. Seen here is the late Jerry Lehman's "100-46"; one of several newer selections known for producing larger fruit ("new" for tree crops = at least a couple decades). While several of these experimental varieties have been given proper names, many are still best known by the string of numbers and letters used in the grower's personal system.
Thanks to @moonmama 's generosity and interest in native tree crops, I was able to bring these babies up to @postockfestival last weekend and establish a tiny trial grove on some of the old ag land there (coincidentally adjacent to the site of my last post, one year ago). Wisconsin is beyond the northern edge of American persimmon's native range, but with climate change well underway this can be seen as a form of assisted migration as these trees & their related ecosystems inevitably shift northwards. American persimmons are calorically dense and full of antioxidants, so the fact that they also support incoming ecosystems seems like a win-win for an uncertain future.
Feeling deep gratitude for my community in general and for the opportunities, encouragement and consistent support I've received during what has been a challenging and transformative year. Y'all know who you are.
#diospyrosvirginiana #americanpersimmon #treecrops #nativeplantsofnorthamerica #postockfestival
Reemerging from a weekend of @postockfestival where I had the privilege of being immersed simultaneously in nature (thanks to our hosts' dedication to ecology & learning their land) and in art (thanks to the incredible musicians' deep commitment to their craft). "Art and nature" are broad paths I follow to maintain a wider perspective in my own life, and this brief opportunity to experience geologic time and transcendent humanity was certainly a balm for passing anxieties.
Humanity brought Ethics and moral feeling into the world as a property of our big brains, and it's reasonable to call the ability to make those types of decisions our true ecological "niche". Seeing people interact deeply with the land and connect to local ecologies in this way gives me hope towards us filling that role.
1. Remnant oak savanna at dawn
2. White oak acorns
3. Edge of old pasture
4. Blue-fruited dogwood
5. Rosinweed in the prairie
6. Ironweed
7. Planting an oak (getting sunburn)
#poststockfestival #ecology #nativeplantsofnorthamerica #oak #oaksavanna #prairie #ecologicalrestoration
One of the rarer plants I had the privilege of seeing in Shawnee National Forest, one-flowered cancerroot (Orobanche uniflora) is a parasitic plant that feeds off the roots of other plants (it particularly enjoys Sedums, of which there are plenty on the rocky sandstone bluffs scattered throughout the region). It doesn't produce any chlorophyll and therefore doesn't make leaves or other green tissues whatsoever --- just ghostly pink and lavender flowers.
#orobanche #parasitism #botany #ecology #nativeplantsofnorthamerica #gardenofthegodsillinois #shawneenationalforest #dispersedcamping
Plant nuts, and wait for spring. Expressing gratitude to the people that tended this ecosystem for over 10,000 years (since glacial retreat), managing landscape-scale, multi-generational food systems well before maize made its way up from the south. Countless native plants, already fully integrated into regional ecosystems, were selected and spread by local Indigenous people in a form of agriculture that had an actual relationship to regional ecologies.
These pecans (Carya illinoinensis) support countless specialist fauna while also providing dense protein for people. While pecans are more common in the south, these northern strains from central Illinois have locally adapted phenologies --- many of our edible plants' expansive ranges and useful qualities are related to a history of long-term Indigenous stewardship.
#pecan #hickory #caryaillinoinensis #nuts #treeplanting #nativeplantsofnorthamerica #agroforestry #thanksgiving #indigenousstewardship #landback
If you live in Chicago and need a moment of self-care, I recommend making time this week to catch the last blooms of the prairie. Some of our city parks have extensive prairie restorations coming into maturity in recent years, and the wild diversity of late-season Asteraceae (sunflower family) can provide grounding meditations on the small-and-overlooked.
Asteraceae (also generally referred to as the "composites") is a huge clade that is being continually edited as DNA analysis illuminates new relationships. One common thread is their characteristic floral morphology --- looking closely, it can be a shock to realize that the "flower" of any unassuming aster or goldenrod is actually the gestalt of a dense, fractal congregation of many tiny disc flowers.
Even the most generic DYC (Damn Yellow Composite) can be breathtaking if looked at deeply --- perspective is everything.
#prairie #asteraceae #goldenrod #aster #coneflower #botany #chicagoparks #morphology #ecologicalrestoration #ecologicalreconciliation
