The West Chicago Garden Club

Are you interested in making your yard a place for birds yo visit, feed, nest, and raise their chicks?

Learn what birds need to make your yard their home. Inviting birds into our gardens by creating a
habitat is a joyful way to connect with nature and help support birds and pollinators.

Birds in the Garden: Creating a Bird Oasis features Pam Karlson’s photos from the Chicago bird habitat she created, illustrating how it is possible to attract over 100 bird species in your very own backyard.

Tips include landscape enhancements, practices, and plant selection, with an emphasis on native plants. Chicagoland’s location along the migratory route, bird species diversity, habitat, diet/foraging, nesting,
supplemental support and community science will also be discussed.

Meeting Location: St Andrew Lutheran Church (NE Corner of Prince Crossing & Geneva Road.)

Meeting Time:

• 6:45PM Arrive & Mingle
• 7:00PM Business Meeting
• 7:15PM Program

We’ve been busy at the Kruse Garden the past few weeks doing the Spring clean up; weeding, dividing, removing (editing), planting, trimming and cutting back. The evidence, the growing mountain of yard waste in the driveway. Hopefully, it will be removed soon.

It’s wonderful to see some new faces showing up to help make the garden more beautiful. It’s always great to get some new garden perspective, and additional hands to accomplish all to the tasks.

I took a brief Mother’s Day stroll through the garden to admire the hard work that has gone into the garden and to just enjoy and see what’s in bloom. When you are there working you get so focused on the job at hand that you don’t always see the overall beauty of the garden. The lilacs are blooming; most
coming to the end of their peak. They are still so fragrant and beautiful. You can find the lilacs along the driveway and along the fence. I didn’t realize how many Camassia’s we have coming up and how spread throughout the garden they are. They combine so well with the dwarf yellow iris, allium and brunnera to name a few. Camassia is a perennial herbaceous plant the grows from a bulb and can grow 24-48 inches tall.

The bridal veil shrub is still blooming in the front of the house and along the fence line, not my personal favorite shrub but seems very fitting in the historic home. The containers throughout the garden are awaiting the addition of the summer annuals. The Nepeta or catmint is starting to bloom. I found some trillium in bloom, celandine poppies, columbine, sweet woodruff, brunnera and many others. I encourage you to take a walk through the Kruse Garden and enjoy! The peonies are getting ready to pop!

As a reminder everyone is welcome to join the gardening fun at the Kruse Garden on Wednesday’s 9am to 11:30; bring your gloves and your favorite gardening tool.

Our West Chicago Garden Club Plant Sale will be on Saturday, May 17th from 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM. It will be at the heart of the West Chicago Blooming Fest in Downtown West Chicago.

Most of our plants come from our members’ gardens or are raised in their greenhouses. You will find Natives, Annuals, Perennials, Vegetables, Herbs, and even some small shrubs and trees.  We have many different varieties of Peppers and tomatoes – both Heirloom and Hybrid.

The sale will be held Rain or Shine! Arrive early for the best selection – the tent opens at 9:00am sharp.

The Festival is along Main St. in downtown West Chicago.  Our tent is on Galena St with the entrance on Main St.

A PDF Version of the flyer is available to download.