Tanna Farms, Mill Creek homeowners slam mowing of wildflowers, prairie grass

BLACKBERRY TOWNSHIP – For years the homeowners near Tanna Farms and Mill Creek Golf Courses enjoyed the prairie grass and wildflowers that grew on the edges of the golf courses and bloomed behind their back yards.

They especially enjoyed it because of the habitat it created for pollinators and butterflies – especially the milkweed which is essential for monarch butterflies.

But there was a shock this summer: A mower came through and chopped everything up on July 11.

“We have lived here 15 years and in those 15 years, I do not remember when it was mowed down in the middle of summer,” said Jennifer Urban, who lives off the fifth hole of the Tanna Farms Golf Course. “In the middle of summer, it goes wild and blooms and it’s beautiful. … It was terrible. There was nothing I could do.”

Urban said Shodeen, which owns the golf course, would either cut it in spring or late fall, never in the middle of the season.

Urban said she and a neighbor came out to ask the man why he was mowing.

“He said, ‘Some lady complained and the boss told me to cut it,’” Urban said. “He left us a good 10 feet of prairie grass.”

But then he came back the next day and continued mowing. Her husband was home and he called her about what to do, she said.

“I told him go stop him,” Urban said.

The man told her husband, “’The boss told me to come back and finish it,’” Urban said.

Dave Patzelt, president of the Shodden Group, said the mowing was done in error and that it would not happen again.

“It was a mistake from lack of communication between the golf course supervisors and the superintendent and grounds crew,” Patzelt said. “It’s unfortunate that it got cut down. It can’t be put back because it is cut. There’s nothing we can do to correct it other than to stop what we were doing and accept that it was a mistake. … We were not trying to harm. Clearly, it was a flat-out mistake.”

Patzelt said the basis of Tanna Farms and Mill Creek have always been to support the natural infiltration system with bioswales and vegetated swales that allow water to return to the ground rather than in a sewer pipe to the Fox River.

A swale is a low or depressed area where water collects, and through vegetation, releases the water slowly as a natural infiltration system. A bioswale is an alternative to a storm sewer.

“That is the basis for the natural environment that Mill Creek has been about for the last 25-30 years,” Patzelt said.

Patzelt said he thought the person complaining to the golf course was new and did not realize the prairie grass and wildflowers were intentional plantings.

“A new person might have moved in and thought the prairie plants are weeds,” Patzelt said. “We did receive phone calls from some residents that the plants were coming through their side of the fence. The prairie plants come up to the fence and poke through. Maybe they thought those were weeds on the other side of the fence.”

Urban’s neighbor Kay Panfil, who also lives near Tanna’s fifth hole, said she does not understand why someone thought the prairie grass and wildflowers should be cut, but was glad to hear it would not happen again.

“We used to have so many butterflies and fireflies,” Panfil said. “It looks terrible and it’s the wrong time of year. They should cut it in the spring or fall. There was no reason to do it when they did it. … It looks like a desert.”

Another neighbor, Tammy Chiovari, said now that monarch butterflies have been designated an endangered species, preserving their habitat is ever more important.

“I am on the board of the Geneva Garden Club and the Garden Clubs of Illinois – that’s like an umbrella for all the garden clubs in the state,” Chiovari said.

Planting for Pollinators is a special project of the Garden Clubs of Illinois, according to its website, www.gardenclubsofillinois.org, which also lists native plants to attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators.

“That is very good to hear,” Chiovari said of the Shodeen company’s vow not to mow any more.