Midwest Natural Gardens Habitat Restoration and Green Infrastructure Management

Jens serves as a consultant to Midwest Groundcovers at their Natural Garden native plant nursery in St Charles, IL. Work includes site stewardship of the native restoration areas which consists of invasive species control, re-seeding, planting and prescribed fire. The work also includes management and re-design of extensive bioswales and other green infrastructure to harvest site runoff for reuse in native plant propagation. These features are planted with native vegetation produced on-site and serve as a demonstration area for proper use and management of native plants in green infrastructure, restoration areas and native perennial gardens. A stream meander project with riffle and pool elements was completed in 2017 to help convey stormwater overflow from a wetland and recreate stream habitat. Improvement of habitat and green infrastructure features are on-going. Work has expanded to include design of native gardens to demonstrate the use of native plants on different scales in a design setting.