PREFACE

      For as long as I can remember, I have loved wildflowers. Having a wonderfully large backyard enabled my husband and me to create large, colorful beds of flowers. Many happy evenings were spent devouring catalogs as ambitious color-coordinated schemes danced in my head. I ordered, and we planted, daffodils, tulips, daylilies, peonies, hostas, and ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum. And because these “old favorites” decorated the yards of most of our neighbors and constituted the inventory of most local and national nurseries, we assumed these were the right ornamentals to plant. Because we love birds, we lined our borders with berry- and fruit-producing trees and shrubs. Later, to our horror, we discovered that most of our well-meaning plant choices were not native to North America and that some were invasive pests. We realized we had made choices without first getting good information.

      While I was walking with my dog one afternoon, I spied a brilliant yellow goldfinch extracting a seed from the iridescent center of a purple coneflower. Belatedly, it dawned on me that flower seeds, not only the fruits, provide birds with food. During another walk in a local park, I noticed that the hostas and daylilies from China did not attract much of anything. In contrast, and to my astonishment, numerous butterflies, skippers, and bees surrounded the native blackeyed Susans, coneflowers, and blazing stars. This produced another epiphany: I could transform my garden of colorful nonnative flowers into a garden of colorful native flowers that welcomes butterflies, other beneficial and beautiful insects, and birds. From these experiences, my gardening ideas evolved. Before long, the backyard lawn was removed, the nonnative ornamentals were put on the compost heap, and a local prairie expert was hired to help me create a backyard urban prairie/savanna.

      These days, I stroll on a woodchip path through a fragrant, colorful kaleidoscope of native sedges, grasses, and flowers right in my own backyard or observe the everchanging scene from a strategically placed bench. I watch goldfinches sip rainwater from little cups formed where cup plant stems meet the leaves. I observe songbirds visiting my yard’s seasonal offering of seeds and fruits. The butterflies, skippers, and bees that ignored my introduced ornamentals now visit my native flowers and grasses for nectar, pollen, and reproduction habitat. Monarch butterfly visits to my oh-so-fragrant common milkweeds actually result in monarch butterfly caterpillars! Tiny oligolege, or specialist, pollinator bees spend sunny hours at my beautiful blue American bellflowers. I remember exclaiming in surprised delight upon seeing a hummingbird hovering at an orange flower on the honeysuckle vine I had planted specifically to attract hummingbirds. Many happy evenings are spent devouring native plant nursery catalogs, as images of native wildflowers dance in my head. The absorbing new world we created just outside our door inspired us to explore the fascinating world of the midwestern prairie, and one result of this was a collaboration between my husband and me on the book Prairie Directory of North America.

      Recognition of the problems associated with invasive nonnative