Help the birds and the environment, and enjoy a beautiful blooming native garden!

Chicago Bird Alliance Online Native Plant Sale is held every spring, offering a wide variety of perennials. The ordering period is over! Thank you to all who placed orders. Please remember that Pick up will be at North Park Village Nature Center on the afternoon of May 26, 2024. Proceeds of the sale help to fund CBA’s successful bird conservation programs such as the push for a bird- friendly buildings ordinance.

Chicago Bird Alliance partners with Pizzo Native Plant Nursery and Walnut Creek Nursery to provide native plants from local and regional ecotypes for sale, many of which are difficult to find in the retail sector. Native species have adapted to our local conditions over many centuries, growing naturally without fertilizers, supplemental irrigation or herbicides. Whether your landscape is sunny, shady or in between, we offer many perennials to choose from. Native plants provide food for pollinators, birds and other wildlife; shelter for wildlife— and they are beautiful.

Thanks to our friends at North Park Village Nature Center for hosting the pickup! Landscape professional Lawry Lewis will be on site to answer your gardening questions.

To learn more about the plants’ requirements, look them up on this guide from the Morton Arboretum. Details on how native plants help birds and pollinators are at Illinois Wildflowers.

There’s lots more information to help you choose plants below.

The Native Plant Sale is always a happy event and we are always looking for volunteers. Spend a few hours with other plant- and bird-lovers and get a little exercise moving plants around. Openings on Friday 5/24 in the afternoon unloading the truck, and Sunday 5/26 from 9-3:30 preparing for and then helping at the sale.

Volunteer

These are the plants we will be offering. Click on the plant name for detailed information.

FLOWERS, GRASSES AND SEDGES

Spring Pollinator Kit - 10 sun-loving species that support butterflies, hummingbirds and caterpillars

American Beak Grass - seed-eaters

Anise Hyssop - hummingbird and pollinator magnet!

Awned Graceful Sedge - seed-eaters

Big-leaved Aster - bees, butterflies, moths

Blue Flag Iris - hummingbirds, butterflies, bees

Blue-stemmed Goldenrod - bees, seed-eaters

Bottle Gentian - bumblebees

Butterfly Weed - monarch host

Cardinal Flower - hummingbirds

Columbine - hummingbirds

Cream Wild Indigo - butterflies, insects

Culver’s Root - bees, butterflies, moths

Downy Sunflower - seed-eaters, especially goldfinch; caterpillars, bees

Elm-leaved Goldenrod - bees, seed-eaters

Foxglove Beardtongue - early summer hummingbirds, bees

Great Blue Lobelia - bees, hummingbirds

Hoary Vervain - pollinators

Leadplant - bees, moths

Little Bluestem - winter seed-eaters

Long-beaked Sedge - moths, seed-eaters

Long-sepal (or Calico) Penstemon - hummingbirds, bees

Marsh blazing star - hummingbirds on fall migration

Ohio Spiderwort - bees

Ozark Bluestar - butterflies, bees, native south of Illinois

Pale Purple Coneflower - summer butterflies, fall goldfinches

Pasque Flower - early pollinators

Penn Sedge/Common Oak Sedge - caterpillars

Plantain-leaved Pussytoes - bees

Prairie Blue-eyed Grass - bees

Prairie Dropseed - grass

Purple Coneflower - summer butterflies, fall goldfinches

Purple Love Grass - caterpillars

Rattlesnake Master - butterflies, insects

Royal Catchfly - hummingbirds, butterflies

Savannah Blazing Star - butterflies

Shooting Star - insect pollonators

Silky Aster - bees, butterflies, seed-eaters

Sky Blue Aster - Pollinators, fall, winter seed eaters

Smooth Phlox - butterflies, moths

Spotted St. John’s Wort - bees, caterpillars

Stiff Tickseed - bees

Sweet Black-eyed Susan - bees, catepillars

Swamp Milkweed - monarch butterflies

Sweet Joe-pye-weed - bees, butterflies, moths, seed-eaters

Thimbleweed - bees

Virginia Bluebells - hummingbirds, butterflies, pollinators

White Wild Indigo - butterflies

Wild Bergamot - bees, hummingbirds

Wild Hyacinth - bees

Wild Strawberry - yum!

Wild Stonecrop - bees

Yellow Coneflower - summer pollinators, fall seeds

Yellow Pimpernel - bees, caterpillars

TREES AND SHRUBS

IMPORTANT NOTE: our pickup is during the emergence of the cicadas, which is predicted to be intense this year. Here are some extra precautions for planting trees and shrubs during this period in 2024.

American Black Elderberry - 24”, fall migrant birds eat fruits; native bees nest in it

White Snowberry - 18”, early summer butterflies, fall fruit for birds

New Jersey Tea - 15” (cage this one from the rabbits) - butterflies, hummingbirds

Shadblow serviceberry - 48”, nesting birds, caterpillars

Buttonbush - 24”, summer butterflies, hummingbirds; fall/winter seeds

Dwarf Bush Honeysuckle - 15”, fall, winter seeds

Spicebush - 15”, birds, butterflies, caterpillars

Common Ninebark - 36”, seed-eating birds

Columbus Strain Redbud - 18”, nectar drinkers and insects

Nannyberry Viburnum - 3’, host of many butterflies,moths; fall migrant birds eat fruits

Where will you put those trees and shrubs?

This guide by Colleen McVeigh can help

Shrubs

Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis)

part sun/shade wet 6-12 feet tall, 5-8 ft. wide

Dwarf Bush honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera)

part sun/shade med 4 ft. tall, 4 ft. wide

Common Ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius)

full sun/shade dry to moist 5-10 ft. tall, 5-10 ft. wideNew Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus)

full sun/part shade tolerates drought 3 ft. tall, 3 ft. wide

Spicebush (Lindera benzoin)

full sun/part shade moist, well drained 6-12 ft. tall, 6-12 ft. wide

White Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus)

sun/light shade dry-moist, well drained 4 ft. tall, 4 ft. wide

Trees

Serviceberry (Amelanchoir canadensis)

full shade/full sun, tolerates drought, 6-25 ft. tall, 4-25 ft. wide

NEED MORE GARDEN SUGGESTIONS?

We have a great page about how your garden can help migratory birds.

Here are National Audubon’s suggestions

Doug Tallamy has studied which plants are best for attracting birds

Free garden designs from Wild Ones - the Chicago and Milwaukee designs are appropriate for our area