6101 N Hoyne Ave

In 2022, West Ridge East Neighbors (WREN) Chicago Block Club Captain Roxane Assaf-Lynn began a four-corner project in support of urban pollinators to complement the turfgrass parkways in her enclave. Attempting to feature Illinois native species while still keeping a prim look, replete with white picket fences, success has been mixed. A trusty forsythia in the center of each, pruned to create an airy low-rise fountain of yellow in the spring, ensures some nourishment for hungry creatures venturing out after winter. Same for poppies that originate in Asia. Meanwhile, the Blackeyed Susans (rudbeckia), Purple Cone Flowers (echinacea), Purple Poppy Mallow "Wine Cups" (callirhoe involucrata), Forget-Me-Not (myosotis sylvatica) Chicory (cichorium intybus), and a variety of daisies (coreopsis and/or bellis perennis) are all native to this region of North America. Roxane dedicates this effort to her immediate neighbors, her chosen city of Chicago, the 40th Ward Environmental Board, the Edgewater Environmental Coalition (EEC) "Parkways for Pollinators" initiative, her father Roberto, whose parents came to the Americas from Palestine in the teens and 1920's, and her mother Evy, a New Orleans gardener who quietly appealed to her members of Congress on behalf of the environment.