Red Stem Native Landscapes, Inc.

Maindenhair Fern and Spikenard in a sandy, shady rain garden in Evanston.

One year after planting, this Rogers Park parkway is thriving.
Planted in front of a commercial building, the businesses, residents, neighbors and pollinators all get to enjoy.

Wild ginger is a perennial ground cover that has beautiful heart-shaped leaves. An attractive red flower blooms in early spring, but they are held low to the ground and are often overlooked. They are pollinated by ants and other small, crawling insects.
Although not related to culinary ginger, the roots of Wild Ginger produce a scent that is similar to ginger.

A Great Black Wasp visiting Spotted Bee Balm (Monarda punctata), one of the nectar plants associated with this wasp, according to Heather Holm's book on the wasps of Eastern North America. While larger wasps can look intimidating, most are very docile and are an integral part of our ecosystems, controlling other insects on plants by hunting them, and serving as incidental pollinators. They are usually not gathering pollen to feed to their young as bees do, but as seen here, they carry the pollen from one flower to another as they nectar or hunt their insect prey. These wasps also have beautiful iridescent blue wings.

Bradbury’s monarda is a valuable addition to any garden. It tolerates sun and shade conditions and average garden soil. The long-lasting and showy blooms appear earlier than most Monardas, and the flowers are white-lilac with darker purple spots. These blooms support a wide range of pollinators, including hummingbirds, butterflies, and native bees.

We love seeing water droplets on Wild Lupine leaves 💧

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Same bench, different angle. Morton Grove garden planted 4 years ago.

White tussock moth visiting our nursery.

One of the great things about native plant gardens is that they can take the heat. But this is true only when the plants have matured enough that their roots have spread into the soil and locked together with other plant roots. Until then they must be watered, and this is especially important when the temperature is over 85 degrees and there is no rain.

💦 Our dedicated team will always water your garden after planting.

Native garden planted four years ago in Wilmette is now in full bloom.
Queen of the prairie loves the extra rain this year.
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Native garden in Riverwoods showing off its summer color.

Bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) is a beautiful native perennial herb in the mint family that pollinators and hummingbirds love. Also, its leaves have a great aroma and have been used in many hot teas.

Coreopsis lanceolata, also known as Sand coreopsis,
is a midspring to early summer perennial with showy, yellow, daisy-like flowers. Butterflies love visiting this flower and songbirds feed on the ripe seeds in late summer.

🔗Link to order online in stories

Tall Bellflower is a mid-summer-blooming biennial wildflower that reaches from three to five feet in height. Hummingbirds are attracted to the bright blue flowers.


🌱Link for ordering online in stories 🔗
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Front rain garden in Jefferson Park.

Boulder wall and garden in Old Norwood Park. Native plantings often start small — the new plantings in the forefront were just planted. But with proper care, they will thrive! Around the front porch the shrubs and plants that went in last fall are already showing off the design 💚 🌿

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Red Stem’s installation team was celebrated this past weekend for the amazing work they do bringing gardens and bounty to life! Pre party pictures only…because we were having too much fun to remember the cameras. Thank you & for the amazing feast and for your generosity!
While Red Stem is known primarily for native plant and pollinator gardens, we also design and install vegetable, fruit and herb gardens.
More pics to come that highlight the swales, rain gardens and pollinator gardens that surround the growing and gathering spaces.

Back yard garden planted in Highland Park last year.

Park Ridge’s garden tour featured one of our gardens yesterday.
We planted the back yard in 2021 and the front yard the year after. 🌱

This back yard in Highland Park had a lot of flooding for many years, then in 2021 the client got a new drainage system that relieved the storm water pressure. We installed the beds around the 3 mature Swamp White Oaks in 2022, and the back fence beds in 2023.
Two weeks ago we installed the last side border beds. The client installed the hardscape himself, following our design plan for the space.

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Full sun garden in Wheeling 🌱

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This woodland planting is about a month post install and it looks great! We love the variation in the leaf coloration in the Early Meadow Rue.

Before and after on this week’s installation in River Forest.
The loss of 3 very large mature oak trees in recent years has resulted in a lot of flooding in this back yard near the Des Plaines river. We expanded and reshaped the curve a bit on the hedge border, took out invasive shrubs, removed English Ivy and lots of weedy plants and landscape plants that weren’t suited to the newly sunny and wet conditions. Most of the hedge border area is now a shallow rain garden, which will spread the storm water out to help with evaporation, and sink it down into the subsoil using the roots of newly planted native flowers, grasses, sedges and shrubs.

They are here!

Front yard garden in Park Ridge, planted in July 2022. In this garden we integrated some of the client’s existing plants into the design, some native and a few non-native as well.

Last week’s installation in Highland Park 🌱

Major turf grass reduction and habitat boost.

This Oak Park shade garden with sunny edges was just planted at the end of October 2023. It’s off to a great start this spring 🌱

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Wild blue phlox (Phlox divaricata) thriving in this home garden in River Forest. With sticky-hairy leaves and delicate, fragrant, lavender flowers, this phlox attracts hummingbirds and butterflies in April and May.

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Our stewardship crew working on a rain garden in Oak Park.