See ChicagoNatureNOW! on TV this week!
Click More Information to learn when and where to view the show.

People need nature, right now! AND WE’RE HELPING!
As the blooming season begins, please support our efforts in spreading a love for Chicago nature.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE!

Nestled within a quiet neighborhood, this remnant prairie is intimate and unusually colorful. In June, pink and purple erupt in every direction. From July through September, the landscape is showered in gold.

Hidden beneath the bluffs, a sparkling stream curls through an emerald woodland lush with spring flowers. Maples immerse you in autumn gold. And winter turns a pewter panorama into an expanse of shining silver.

Hidden behind a quiet cemetery, this peaceful place is wild and brimming with life: ever-changing worlds of savanna, prairie, and fen that bring enjoyment throughout the seasons.

This rare remnant prairie overlooking Lake Michigan is of great biological significance and sensory satisfaction. Starting in May, wander amongst the vast array of plants that bloom in sublime profusion.

Wide-open space where you can lose yourself in the towering grasses and flowering plants. Watch coyotes, scare up deer, and marvel in the wonder of this prairie reconstruction.

Conveniently located amidst the urban sprawl is a large, luscious prairie. Just exit the tollway, enter the magical gate, and leave your worries behind.

Follows the banks of the Little Calumet River for, quite possibly, the best place in the park for spring wildflowers.

Vast, unpredictable, and wild: Owls, turtles, coyotes, and swarms of bees. Endless flowers and black oak trees. By a lake called Michigan and a river named Dead, come to this place if only one choice you have.

Johnson’s Mound: This wooded glacial kame is rich in spring wildflowers and a hike through the ravines provides a quiet and peaceful nature experience.

In an urban locale where there is little nature exists, the prairie here provides a wonderful oasis where peace can be found.

Experience the wide-open space of the vast prairie and fen. Hike the rolling terrain and disappear into the horizon.

This rare and expansive prairie is built upon a base of dolomite limestone. Buffered by river and wetland, the prairie comes to life with squadrons of water-loving dragonflies and fields of pink nodding wild onion.

Springtime finds me wandering the woodland. Mesmerized by hypnotic fields of bluebells and white trilliums, I cross the same stream for the fifth time. Disoriented, I wonder where I am. It’s easy to lose yourself here.

Wide trails navigable by foot or by bike guide you past open stretches of wetland, prairie, and savanna. See frogs and turtles, egrets and herons, elusive mink, and birds that perch on tall flowers and make them dance.

In this black oak savanna, wildflowers blossom from spring into fall. Hike past rolling dunes and flooded swales, where beavers startle with slaps from their tails, then over high dunes to reach the Lake Michigan shore.

With an invigorating jolt of green and an eye-popping carpet of spring ephemerals, this intimate woodland is a springtime paradise and a visually explosive place to visit.

Life abounds under the dome of black oaks of this rare sand savanna. From glass lizards and six-foot snakes to enigmatic gophers and their omnipresent mounds, to flowers of all fashions, this is not a refuge—this is paradise.

Spring is the time to visit. Under a leafless woodland in the blackest of muck, skunk cabbage emerges, initiating a chain reaction of sparkling wildflowers that spreads across the forest floor.

A beautiful gem hidden within Chicago’s city limits with a unique topography formed by the forces of Lake Michigan. Once inside and surrounded by nature, you may very well forget that you’re in the city at all.

A springtime woodland adventure: Listen for rapid, hollow percussions of woodpeckers. Watch wary warblers as they flash about and perch only for an instant. And inhale the essences of bluebell and leek along the winding creek.

Atop a small, gravelly hill sits a gem of a prairie that puts on summer-long flower shows and provides a fabulous view of the tallgrass prairie below.

This black soil savanna is among the rarest places on Earth. Almost lost to the ages, it was rediscovered and restored to health. Now abounding with life, this preserve proves in one visit the benefits of saving places like this.

A daydream come true. Discover the beauty and drama of the seasons as you make your way around wetlands, through open woodlands, and over rolling panoramas of prairie.

Here lies a tale of two prairies: one, a tallgrass prairie, dense and looming, soft in soil; the other, rare and rocky, where stunted plants rooted in dolomite limestone grow few and far between.

Hike the sidewalks left behind from a construction project halted by the Great Depression and experience nature’s comfort while in the embrace of the savanna, the wetland, and the prairie.