NIU Grounds is embracing sustainable landscaping designs through the implementation of native perennial garden beds.
Native perennial plants featuring plants tolerant of full to partial sunlight, drought, and salt spray. Plants in these beds were grown in the Montgomery Greenhouse, Grounds Greenhouse, and outside using the milk jug method. This bed has a mix of wildflowers and grasses, including:
- Agastacge foeniculum (Anise hyssop)
- Amemone cylindrica (Thimbleweed)
- Aquilegia canadensis (Columbine)
- Asclepias syriaca (Common milkweed)
- Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly weed)
- Baptisia bracteata (Cream wild indigo)
- Baptisia tinctoria (Small yellow wild indigo)
- Camassia scilloides (Wild hyacinth)
- Carex blanda (Common wood sedge)
- Dodecatheon maedia (Midland shooting star)
- Enchinacea pallida (Pale purple coneflower
- Eragrostis spectabilis (Purple love grass)
- Geum triflorum (Prairie smoke)
- Liatris pycnostachya (Prairie blazing star)
- Lupinus perennis (Wild lupine)
- Monarda punctata (Spotted beebalm)
- Penstemon hirsutus (Hairy beardtongue)
- Phlox pilosa (Prairie Phlox)
- Rudbeckia hirta (Black-eyed Susan)
- Schizachyruim scoparium (Little bluestem)
- Silene regia (Royal catchfly)
- Sporobolus heterolepis (Prairie dropseed)
- Symphyotrichum lateriforum (Calico aster)
- Tradescantia ohienis (Ohio Spiderwort)