Dick and Pat Sanderson see threatened species every day.  Plant species, that is.  Right in their own back yard. 

The Sandersons have a naturalized back yard between their home and the water’s edge, which works as a giant buffer of sorts.  Their natural shoreline contains threatened pitcher’s thistle, Lake Huron tansy and Houghton’s goldenrod.  They live near Elk Rapids on East Bay. 

“We need natural vegetation to help purify the water,” Dick says.

Pitcher’s thistle and Houghton’s goldenrod grow nowhere else in the world but the Great Lakes shoreline.  Pitcher’s thistle grows in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Ontario, with most of it being in Michigan.  Houghton’s goldenrod grows primarily along the tip of the mitt and along the southeastern shore of the U.P. 

Dick’s love of the natural world and plants began as a child.  He grew up as a birder; his parents banded wild birds.  “I would look at every wild plant I could find,” he says. 

He and Pat have several naturalized gardens on their property.  They have purchased some of the plants, and others they have transplanted from the woods.  “Wild plants need little water and little fertilizer,” Dick says.

Dick and Pat’s two grandchildren, now in college, spent a lot of time on the property when they were growing up.  Dick says that when his grandson Andrew was five, he swore that his grandpa knew exactly which logs to turn over to find red-bellied salamanders.  “If you get out and walk and let them learn, they’re sponges,” Dick says about children exploring the natural world. 

The Sandersons love their copy of Guide to Great Lakes Coastal Plants by Ellen Elliott Weatherbee, published by University of Michigan press.  It details where specific plants grow and lists state-endangered species.

Photos by Dick Sanderson.   Top:  Houghton’s goldenrod.  Center and bottom:  pitcher’s thistle.