Chicago River revival: Paddle and Plant’s mission to restore the banks

CHICAGO — While most fall gardeners are kneeling in flower beds there’s a group in Chicago that is lading shovels onto canoes.

The group says their best plants grow along the banks of the Chicago River..

They call themselves Paddle and Plant. They are a group of makeshift gardeners on a mission to bring life back to a river long forgotten.

When they started eight years ago, the riverbanks were little more than mud and memory choked with invasive plants leaving the water sluggishly silent. 

Through friends of the Chicago River, the group of volunteers took to the banks, armed with paddles and flats of native sedges, they began to dig, plant and hope.

Bit by bit, the banks came alive.

More information on their website.

It’s through a 2024 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Friends of the Chicago River are mapping out a plan to install thousands more plants along the entire 156 miles of the river. They are calling it the River Shallows Project and hope it will continue to stabilize the shoreline through aquatic habitat.