Our dream at The Wild Midwest is to heal and empower: to reduce habitat loss, build healthy soil, mitigate climate change, clean and preserve our water resources, and increase biodiversity within wild and domestic spaces alike. This is why we have expanded our mission to include agriculture. Often considered an enemy of wild spaces, reforms within agriculture have the potential to make an impact far beyond the residential and even commercial scale landscapes within urban areas. Within Illinois alone, 75 million acres are devoted to agriculture.

People tell us a lot that they want to do the right thing ecologically, but they don't know how. It's hard in our area to find native perennials and heritage livestock, let alone designers who know how to integrate them. But it is more than possible to incorporate these plants and animals into our landscapes. The Wild Midwest wants to expand public awareness and make life-centric landscape planning more accessible. 

Modern agriculture has made incredible gains in efficiency of food production. A byproduct of this focus on efficiency of weight gain and efficiency of calories produced per dollar has lead to a precipitous drop in the number of breeds and species cultivated. Older breeds and genetics often retain important characteristics, such as genetic diversity, maternal instincts, ease of birthing, disease resistance, flavor, foraging capability, and the list goes on. Just like conservation of diversity in wildlife, conservation of diversity in domestic species is crucial to a sustainable future.

We provide quite a few services including garden and landscape design and management plans, seed grown, wild-type native plants, soil testing and soil health consultation, and hourly work such as prep, maintenance, installation, and sourcing.