First Lady Wants Native Flowers Along Illinois Highways

In August, Illinois First Lady Patti Blagojevich launched a "State Beautification Initiative" to promote plantings of native wildflowers and grasses along highways throughout the state. "We wanted to make Illinois a more beautiful place for everyone who lives here and to draw more tourists here," Mrs. Blagojevich said. "And we want to enhance the natural environment — the less mowing we can do the better."

	Photo by Jack Pizzo.

Blagojevich announced the initiative — her first and most extensive as First Lady — in conjunction with the Illinois State Fair, where thousands of visitors to her booth delighted in a splendid display of 48 species of native wildflowers and grasses, courtesy of Pizzo and Associates, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and the Illinois Department of Transportation. The flowers on display were to be replanted along highway interchanges near Springfield at the close of the fair. "The minute we installed the flowers [in our booth], we saw bumblebees and seven or eight types of butterflies attracted to the wildflowers," she noted. "There weren't nearly the variety at the cultivated areas across the way."

Readers of a certain age will recall Lady Bird Johnson's efforts to beautify America's highways by removing billboards and planting native flowers — a campaign that resulted in the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. Now tourists flock to Texas in the spring to see displays of roadside bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush. Patti Blagojevich's goal is no less ambitious. "Ultimately we'd like to have wildflowers along all the interstates in Illinois," she said. The program will begin, however, by targeting gateways into the state and major interchanges and exits around cities. Twenty-eight sites have been selected for starters with the funds being reallocated from existing highway maintenance dollars.

"In selecting the flower mixes, we're going to be basing our information on historic records," Mrs. Blagojevich added, "and an analysis of the different soil types and subclimates throughout the state."

Mrs. Blagojevich added that she will be looking for help from neighboring municipalities, garden clubs, universities and other groups to make this program a success.

"Ugliness is so grim," Lady Bird Johnson once said. "A little beauty, something that is lovely, I think, can help create harmony which will lessen tensions."