This point in spring means two things for me: Time to plant my garden, and time to support animal welfare in Chicago. I work for The Anti-Cruelty Society, helping them raise the money it takes to care for thousands of animals every year. Spring means it’s time to Bark From The Heart, and raise the money it takes to keep an open door for any animal in need. It also means anxiously checking the weather to determine when it’s safe to plant your garden.
This year, I’m combining two of my favorite things: The seeds I collected from my garden last year, and my dog, Dixie, who I adopted from the Society in March 2020. (She likes playing fetch in the garden while I drink my coffee in the morning.)
Donate any amount to my fundraiser and you will get your choice of mammoth sunflower seeds, Aztec marigolds, bottle gourds, or milkweed. Keep reading to learn what’s so dang cool about these amazing plants.
Your gift as seed money:
The Anti-Cruelty Society is the oldest animal welfare organization in Chicago. It was founded in 1899, first as an organization that lobbied for more humane conditions for Chicago’s children, and horses. Later, the focus of their work shifted to only animal welfare, and that is at the core of their mission today.
Fun Chicago Fact: The Society moved into its building at 157 W. Grand Ave. in 1910, and the neighborhood has just kind of grown around it. Over the decades, the Society has expanded and built into other adjoining buildings on the block. That makes navigating the internals of the building a confusing mess, with rich history behind every single door.
The last year has been a challenging one for the Society, but they have navigated the pandemic expertly and swiftly, with the safety of all staff, volunteers, adopters, and every animal as the number one priority. At the core of what the Society does today is to create a more humane world for both people and pets. In the last year the Society placed over 4,000 animals into their forever homes, engaged over 5,100 people in our virtual programming, fostered nearly 1,500 pets, and distributed almost 550,000 meals to pets whose owners were economically affected by the pandemic. They keep an open door, and won’t turn any animal in need away regardless of age, condition, species or temperament.
A gift of any amount can go a long way to improving the lives of animals in Chicago. Even the smallest donation can make a world of difference in the life of one dog:
•$10 – One deworming treatment
•$25 – One microchip
•$35 – One veterinary exam
•$50 – One round of vaccinations
•$90 – Five days’ worth of food, water, and care
•$150 – One adoption fee
•$200 – Spay or neuter services
•$400 – Average cost to care for one dog during their stay
Why sunflower seeds are so cool:
Sunflowers are some of the most prolific, abundant, and diverse prairie plants you’ll find out there. Members of the aster family, they grow happily in the forests, savannahs, prairies, and roadsides all over this state. However, there is nothing native whatsoever about the mammoth sunflower, it’s just big.
Mammoth sunflowers, and sunflowers of all kinds, are hearty plants. Like, every good prairie plant its root systems are deep and strong, that’s how it’s able to hold itself up, and move along with the sun all day. Mammoth sunflower roots can push themselves four feet (or more) down beneath the surface, that’s why they’re so great for gardens with less-than-ideal soil. Their roots push down with enough force to break up hardened clay and move small rocks. Once down there, the roots introduce new beneficial bacteria and allow for helpful insects to make their way below ground.
Sunflowers are not picky about soil quality, in fact, they’re very useful at pulling bad gunk out of your dirt. (The word for this is phytoremediation.) Sunflowers are the enthusiastic cleanup crew for soil contaminated by polluted groundwater, lead, heavy metals, and other poisonous chemicals. If you visit Chernobyl and Fukushima, you may find fields of sunflowers pulling radiation directly from the dirt. A friend recently told me about a nonprofit based in Tulane City, Louisiana that filled some of the worst-hit neighborhoods in New Orleans with sunflowers following the devastating damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
These particular sunflower seeds are my personal heirloom variety. They grow as high as 14 feet tall, in the bed of clay and rocks in my backyard.
Marigolds for all season blooms:
Do you like cut flowers in your home? Do you want to feed the pollinators all season long? Did you know that marigold plants can grow about four feet tall? Because I learned that last year when I planted these guys. This variety of marigold grows so easily from seed, that you can sow directly in the dirt right now and feel pretty confident you’ll have blooms until November. This species is known as Aztec Marigolds and if you ever wanted to grow your own flower crown, this is the plant for you.
Marigolds are also known as “companion plants” that help other plants in your garden to grow, and keeps away pests like squash bugs, aphids and even rabbits. If you grow squash, melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, lettuce, pumpkins, beans, asparagus or onions, plant marigolds for a heartier harvest.
Bottle gourds for fresh foliage:
When we’re talking about the plant, we call them bottle gourds. When we’re talking about the fruit, we call it a calabash. Either way, these trellis-loving climbers will grow large enough to create a wall of foliage to beautify your garden all season. These particular seeds were harvested from last year’s longest gourd, Bert, and the most squat, Ernie. And yes, you can eat them.
Milkweeds for monarchs:
If you don’t have a green thumb, but do have a patch of dirt you can find, milkweed is the ideal plant for you. This native, weedy plant is a vital part of our landscape and the only host plant for caterpillars of the monarch butterfly. The monarch butterfly is about the coolest species of butterfly you’ll find. Monarchs every year migrate from Canada to central Mexico and back, which is astonishing in its own right. It actually takes three generations of monarchs to make the trip. The first two generations are the ones you’ll see most of the time, they flap those little orange and black wings north every spring. The third generation is what’s known as a super generation – it’s huge. The super generation of monarch is bigger and stronger than its parents or grandparents. It lives eight times longer and travels ten times farther. But the one thing that it needs at every leg of that journey, is milkweed. This is especially true right here in the Great Lakes region because we are often the first or last pit stop for migrating wildlife before or after crossing the lakes.
