The most common Smilax species with dense, round heads and long peduncles in your area is S. lasioneura (Blue Ridge Carrionflower). Smilax herbacea is similar, but would have pubescent leaf blades underneath. It is also much less common in Illinois. Here is a link that might be useful: Smilax lasioneura description

Hi Leggs, Welcome to RMG! Here are some pics that might help you more with the lavender. This is how I handle them since I prefer small, compact plants, but I've see where other people just let them grow into BIG "shrubs," the couple times I've heard of that it was more Midwest or east coast areas. These pics cover a whole year so you can see the evolution! The first one is May of '09, after they had been cut down sometime over winter and were starting to grow out again. The second one is July of '09 when they were blooming. These are all pretty small plants because they were all seedlings that came up naturally in the previous year or two. The third one is May of '10 when I was getting ready to cut them down from the previous summer. Usually I cut them down sometime in the fall or over the winter, but didn't get it done this time. The next one is May of '10, the same day, right after cutting everything down. When I'm cutting down small lavender plants I usually go thru and cut the large stems off individually, then I kind of give them a "haircut" over the top to even out the smaller stems. When I have bigger plants (which I do now), it would take a couple days each to cut them down that way, so I just take my good gardening scissors and cut the whole thing down pretty much even over the top, rounding the sides down a little bit, and since they "flop" around the edges a lot and I don't have that much room for them, I cut all the lower "flopping" stems off all the way to the base of the plant. And this is just a closeup of the ones in the corner on the left side of the sidewalk after they were cut down, the same day! And here are a couple pics of them in July of '13, just last summer. You can see that the original plants have gotten bigger, and more seedlings have come up around them. After a few (3-6) years the center will start to die out, as it has with Zach's, and sometimes you can get it to look halfway decent again by cutting it back several times as it starts to grow out each time to force new growth in the middle, but with as many as I have coming up I just "dispose of them" when they get old and woody and start to die out in spots. I cut/pulled several of the old ones in the 2013 pics out just a few weeks ago when I was cutting them down this year since I didn't get it done over winter again! I have LOTS of new seedlings coming along to replace them! None of the plants in any of those pictures were actually planted, they all came up as seedlings. As near as I can tell the original plant that had been put in by the previous owners was already dead when I moved in here, and I believe that plant was where the rock you can see between the existing plants in the second pic is. There was a slight depression there, and I'm pretty sure that's where the roots of the original plant had rotted! So you can see how easily it reseeds--IF you can get a first plant started successfully. Some people have trouble getting a plant to grow, and I suspect that's because they overwater. The seedlings you see in my pics are coming up thru the rock mulch, and under that there's (why do people use this stuff!) landscape fabric--and under THAT is some extremely heavy clay! They do get water at times when I'm watering the roses or hibiscus, but there are also a lot of times the very small seedlings get little or no water for weeks at a time. As near as I can tell, they absolutely thrive on neglect! If you want to try to start one I recommend putting it in around when your "last average frost date" is, so it has as long as possible to establish a good root system this summer. Then just let it be and wait for seedlings to start coming up after it's bloomed the first couple times! Once you get seedlings coming up naturally you should be set for life! (If you decide to try to start some from seed, I'd recommend winter sowing it this coming winter.) English Lavender, Lavandula angustifolia, is the only reliably hardy one, stay away from the French and Spanish lavender, and any other permutation! Regarding if you'd get enough to use, YES! I wouldn't cut anything off of the original plant for the first year for sure, and until you have several seedlings coming up, you'd always want to leave some of the flowers on to go to seed. But you can cut them down anytime, when they're "fresh," or after they dry, and the scent is SO strong you need to be careful to not use too much of it for whatever you want it for! I did discover (when I was making a "sachet" for a friend who loves it) one time that when you cut it fresh and dry the flowers, they do not retain their color. I was hoping they would! For your "survival of the fittest" question, with self seeding things I like I just let them come up wherever, and pull them out if they go somewhere I don't want them. I've never had this problem, but if something was coming up SO thick that none of the plants were doing well, I might pull some of them out to thin them a little bit. Don't think that would be a problem very often. A couple other perennials that will probably do well for you for what your describing (poor soil, LOTS of sun) are Hollyhocks, Alcea rosea - reseeds a lot! (have some pics of this one) Agastache, a/k/a hyssop, hummingbird mint, licorice mint, etc. Some of them reseed, but not "violently" in my experience. Russian sage, Perovskia - I don't think it reseeds! Helianthus maximilianii, perennial sunflower - spreads invasively, don't know if it reseeds! ALL of those are big plants, but they thrive in poor soil with little care. Any of the succulents should work for you. They won't reseed, but they spread, some faster than others. There are LOTS of different kinds! Delosperma Lavender Ice, 'Psfave', iceplant Delosperma basuticum 'White Nugget', iceplant - comes in yellow too, 'Gold Nugget' Sedum 'Angelina' - turns kind of pinky-orange in winter Sedum spurium 'Tricolor' - turns very pink over winter Sempervivum, hen & chicks - there are hundreds of varieties! I don't have them, but pussytoes, Antennaria, should do well for you, it's a low, groundcover kind of thing! Some of the "straight species" coneflowers would probably do well, like (both are CO natives): Echinacea angustifolia -- Western Coneflower Echinacea pallida -- Prairie Coneflower, Pale Purple Coneflower A few more Colorado Natives: Gaillardia aristata -- Native Blanket Flower Ratibida columnifera -- Prairie Coneflower, Mexican Hat Rudbeckia laciniata -- Lace-leaf Coneflower, Golden Glow Verbena bipinnatifida -- Dakota Verbena Zinnia grandiflora -- Prairie Zinnia And probably any of the straight species, native type Penstemons would work well too. If you have any questions I'll try to get back to answer them, but I'm really busy right now so can't promise that! Digit is up in your general neck of the woods and maybe he'll see this and have some suggestions. He hasn't been around for a few days, and I know he's REALLY busy with his kazillion flower and veggie seedlings at this time of year! When you have time go over to the Who's Here in 2014 thread and tell us a little more about yourself! Gotta go! Happy spring! Skybird

Katy-did, You can dig and weed around native plants as long as you don't get TOO close. If a plant is kept in place, you could dig a weed as close as the outer edges of the leaves without damaging the roots too much. You could add woodland wildflowers in spots that currently have lawn grasses or weeds. You probably will find some weeds like dandelions, plantain, and other lawn weeds. You could dig these up and put new wildflowers instead. If there is not too much lawn grass to remove, then it could be done with small tools (hand trowel, etc) close to existing wildflowers. Larger areas could be turned over with a shovel. If you want to convert areas that don't have many wildflowers you can simply cover the grass and weeds with lots of fall leaves. The leaves will smother most of the grass and decay to enrich the soil and make it more like a woodland soil, which will help encourage woodland wildflowers. If you have an area with only a few wildflowers, you could move the wildflowers then either turn over the grass with a shovel then mulch with leaves, or simply mulch with leaves and wait. To move a wildflower dig up a piece of the ground with the wildflower in it and move it intact to a new location. I use a standard garden shovel to move a piece of ground about a foot in diameter at the surface and about a foot or s15 inches deep. This works for most large wildlfowers. For really small ones you could move a smaller piece of earth. If you keep the ground intact and therefore preserve the contact between the roots and the soil you should be able to move most wildflowers. Try to avoid separating the roots from the soil - there are many very small roots and even smaller strands of fungus that connect a root to the soil which are destroyed if a plant is moved bare root. Some plants will recover, but some may not so it is best to keep the soil and the plant together. Place the wildflower and soil in the ground so that the surface of the soil matches the surface in the new location, and carefully fill cracks around the edges of the soil ball with more soil.

Maryann, The Nature Conservancy has good info on their website. A visit to a local native plant society might also give you good info for your particular area. Some more advice: Start by learning to reliably identify your non-native invaders and spend a lot of time and energy during the first few years combatting those. Hold off on killing trees until you have made a dent in the invasives in the understory - the shade from the trees will help to suppress the germination of the millions of invasive seeds you might have. I would start with attacking the invasive vines since you need to get rid of them before they kill off your mature trees which took decades to grow. Getting rid of invasives with thorns (like multiflora rose) would also be high on the priority list too since getting rid of those will make you more likely to be able to work comfortably (I do however sometimes prune back but not totally kill some thorny stuff around young saplings to protect them from deer). Some paths in really crowded areas might make work and enjoyment of your land easier and safer as well. However, if you clear out a lot of the invasives, there will be more room for you to move about and paths will not be as necessary. Also, take note of what pops up over a two or three year period. With luck, some desireable natives are lurking in there and just waiting for you to provide a little breathing room. Many invasives are still active or easy to identify in late fall and winter when many natives are dormant so that is a good time to go a little crazier with mowers and herbicides, etc. I would not go hog wild with plant and seed purchases until you have some relatively well-weeded areas to add to. However, if you are like me you wont want to wait for too long and will start putting things in here and there even where you haven't really haven't sufficiently beat back the invaders yet.