Hidden Gems on Rainbow Beach Support Organic Gardening, Native Ecosystem

by Sheryl DeVore

In summer, Chicago’s Rainbow Beach along Lake Michigan can be alive with sunbathers,

swimmers and children building sandcastles. Two other parts of Rainbow Beach, however—the dunes natural area and a gated organic garden—often go unnoticed by many visitors, according to Olga Arias, president of the Rainbow Beach Victory Garden.

“When we gave tours of the garden a few years back, a number of people said they used to come to the beach when they were children and never knew the garden was here,” Arias says. Folks are slowly learning about the garden and dunes restoration at Rainbow Beach, she adds.

Rainbow Beach, owned by the Chicago Park District, is located near 79th Street and South Shore Drive. The history of the beach and garden is long, while the restoration of the dunes natural area is more recent.

Named after the U.S. Army’s 42nd Rainbow Division in World War I, Rainbow Beach opened in 1908. Initially, visitors referred to it as Rocky Ledge Beach due to a manmade limestone ledge built to prevent shoreline erosion. Over the years, the city of Chicago expanded the beach and acquired more land. Eventually, the property was transferred to the Chicago Park District, which built a large field house there in 1999. The field house features handball courts and a fitness center. Including the field house, dunes and garden, Rainbow Beach spans about 61 acres.

Birth of a garden

Like Rainbow Beach itself, the Victory Garden evolved over time. The concept emerged during World War I but became more popular during World War II when Americans were asked to plant gardens to honor war veterans and combat local food shortages.

“The Rainbow Beach Garden began in about 1917 right outside the grounds of the old steel mill factory on the south side,” Arias says. “Immigrants who worked at the factory developed a space nearby to start growing their own food. It was just about feeding your family.”

In 1942, the name was changed to Rainbow Beach Victory Garden. Community members leased plots in the garden to grow their favorite foods as well as flowers.

“In the late 1980s, city officials wanted to do away with the garden entirely,” Arias relays. “The garden members were people who had come of age during the turbulent '60s, and they protested. They held a sit-in at Mayor Daley’s office. In the end, they cut the garden space by half, fenced it in and gave access to city water.”

Adds Arias, “We are not ungrateful for that access. Water conservation is one of our policies. We don’t waste it. We have rain barrels to capture water for use in the garden.” They only use the city water when it’s needed.

In addition, the garden went organic in 2010. “We’re promoting respect for the Earth and respect for the community,” Arias notes.

Members learned to control pests via other means besides pesticides and herbicides. “Even when you go organic, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re using something without chemicals,” Arias explains. “We really had to do a lot of research on what we could use. We are trying to stay as faithful to being organic as possible.”

The Rainbow Beach Victory Garden sits on 3 acres and 48 members grow plants on 64 plots. The public can arrange tours by visiting the website: rbvg7900.wixsite.com.

Within the space are perennial and annual flower gardens that attract bees and butterflies. Other plots yield tomatoes, peppers and various other produce.

“Our most recent addition has been a mini-orchard with apples, pears and peaches. The park district helped by obtaining tree saplings for us,” Arias says.

“This was all very new to us, having an entire orchard,” she continues. “It’s been a big learning experience. We have amazing gardeners. We have members who have been there for 40 years. Everybody has something to contribute on how we manage and care for the garden.”

The space includes four donation gardens, designated to provide food for those in need. Each fall, garden members invite family, friends and neighbors to visit and take home some produce. They also donate food to local churches.

“We try to grow what people will want to eat and things that are healthy,” Arias says, offering examples such as kale, cabbage, tomatoes and cantaloupe.

It’s a two-year waiting list for those that would like to have a plot in the garden, she says, adding, “New members come in who are so enthusiastic and eager, but sometimes don’t realize how much work it is.”

Dunes natural area

After a hard day’s work in the garden, Arias sometimes walks the short path at the nearby Rainbow Beach Dunes Natural Area (RainbowBeachDunes.wordpress.com). “It’s beautiful,” she observes. “You see tall, native grasses, the sand, the shoreline and a wonderful view of the skyline.”   

Volunteers have been managing and improving the 9-acre dunes area for the Chicago Park District for more than a decade.

“Rainbow Beach is not a remnant beach, nor is the natural area/dune ecosystem a remnant of a previous habitat,” says Alison Anastasio, an urban ecologist and former lead volunteer steward for the beach dunes natural area. The beach is “all sand on top of construction and steel industry fill, including slag, which characterizes the majority of Chicago’s lakefront,” she explains.

“In the early 2000s when local native species like marram grass began colonizing part of the beach on their own, the Chicago Park District included it as part of its burgeoning natural areas program,” Anastasio says. The district planted more marram grass, the foundational plant for Great Lakes dune ecosystems, and other native prairie and dune species.

“This site now hosts rare and endangered plants, such as prickly pear cactus, monarch butterflies and loads of bird species on their trip north or south on the Mississippi Flyway,” Anastasio says.

While volunteer steward at the natural area, Anastasio organized work days to enhance the area and educate others about the ecosystem. For example, in 2010, volunteers planted 300 seedlings of native plants and scattered 2 pounds of native grass seed, including sand coreopsis, pale purple prairie clover, rough blazing star and flowering spurge. Work continues throughout the growing season and into fall to remove invasive species like spotted knapweed and sweet clover and to monitor the plant community.

 A few years ago, Jacob Klippenstein became the new lead steward at the dunes area. He says he’s learned that the land area’s size can ebb and flow depending on lake levels. “As stewards and volunteers, it’s our responsibility to make sure that harmful invasives are not given a chance to take a foothold and that a diverse native flora is reestablished,” he says.

Klippenstein has recently led cleanup days to make the natural area a potential nesting site for the federally endangered piping plover, which has been spotted there and is nesting at Montrose Beach this summer.

At the natural area, a half-mile trail takes visitors through prairie grasses waving in the breeze above the sand and blooming dune plants.

In August, visitors often find milkweed, blazing star and goldenrods in bloom among the native grasses. Dragonflies and swallows can be seen flying over the natural area, and in September, visitors may observe large swarms of migrating green darner dragonflies flying over the sand.

Rainbow Beach Dunes Natural Area is open daily from sunup to sundown. The public is invited to help on volunteer workdays, with registration required. The next scheduled workdays are from 10 a.m. to noon on August 24 and September 28.

Sheryl DeVore has written six books on science, health and nature, as well as nature, health and environment stories for national and regional publications. Read more at SherylDeVore.WordPress.com.