Deer Grove is
primarily an Oak-Hickory woodland, with areas of wetland and prairie remnants.
This scene shows May Apples and Trillium, native spring wildflowers, surrounding
a White Oak.
Deer Grove and volunteering
We are a project of the Nature Conservancy's Volunteer Stewardship Network (VSN) in conjunction with the Cook County Forest Preserve District. Our goal is to restore to pre-setelment conditions, the native plant and animal communities found in the Deer Grove Forest Preserve. Volunteers are what make this project possible and new faces are always welcome. Deer Grove Forest Preserve is located in Palatine, a northwest suburb of Chicago, IL. The western half of the preserve, where work is being done, is bounded by Quentin Road on the east, Dundee on the south, Ela on the west and Lake Cook on the north. (Click on the Oak picture above for it's story.)
Deer Grove is
primarily an Oak-Hickory woodland, with areas of wetland and prairie remnants.
This scene shows May Apples and Trillium, native spring wildflowers, surrounding
a White Oak.
Work began in the Fall of 1995, as part of the Volunteer Stewardship Network, which has been restoring and preserving natural areas of Chicago.
Our activities typically include removal of alien invasive plants and seed collecting, processing, and planting of native plants to re-establish them in degraded areas.
There is also monitoring of existing plants. Data is collected in restored and un restored areas to compare the before and after states of community health and bio diversity.
We have conducted prescribed burns of several areas, which help to control unwanted plants and encourage the growth of native ones that originally thrived with occasional burns.
A hearty welcome to all of you who have just joined the Deer Grove Natural Area Volunteers. You are the heart and soul of this restoration effort--through your work Deer Grove will be able to look forward to a future of renewed health and vigor.
You have joined the cast of a nationally-recognized volunteer movement, the Volunteer Stewardship Network, from which I hope you'll learn great things and to which you'll contribute through your important work. The Network was organized in 1983 by The Nature Conservancy. It began as a small-scale experiment in suburban Chicago by Nature Conservancy staff and a core group of dedicated volunteers. These people realized that if the remaining examples of Illinois' habitats were to survive with their original healthy ecology intact, they needed help. Volunteers provided this help--through people power, visibility and education to preserve and restore these precious natural areas. Today, the VSN has grown to include over 6,400 volunteers statewide.
The Nature Conservancy sponsors the Network by providing educational opportunities--workshops, annual stewards' conferences, and Prairie University (a catalog of workshops, classes, and other educational opportunities about natural history and restoration)--and by serving as an "information clearinghouse" for the Network. The Nature Conservancy links VSN groups and volunteers throughout the region with each other and with conservation professionals to share techniques, new initiatives, and important restoration experiences in our continuing search to learn more about the work we do.
The Deer Grove Natural Area Volunteers site is one of 48 Cook County Forest Preserve restoration project sites throughout Cook County. For the last five years, the Forest Preserve has been working to restore more than 54,000 acres of land , or 80 percent of the Forest Preserve District, to it's original ecological condition. In 1995, more than 2,400 volunteers donated approximately 30,000 hours of their time to help improve the ecosystems within the Forest Preserve.
I hope you are excited by the task before you and eager to take advantage of the opportunities it presents as you make a difference to preserve a rare, beautiful and important bit of Illinois' original landscape.