The West Chicago Garden Club

The Garden Gate is Open

Several years ago Billie rescued a garden from her grandparents’ farm in South Dakota. She fondly remembers the gate opening to the yard next to their little farm house.  Dirk and Henrietta immigrated from the Netherlands in the late 1800’s so the gate is anywhere from 60 to 100 years old.

On a garden walk in Hinsdale, Billie and I saw a garden gate with posts covered in china mosaic tiles. Billie immediately imagined something similar to support her grandparents’ gate for the Kruse Garden.  Garden club members were asked to donate old china plates and cups to be broken and placed on posts.

It took us a while to assemble the posts and the four of us installed the gate last week.  It looks spectacular. Please come and see the new addition and try to spot the pieces you provided. Thanks especially to Dorothy O’Connor for her generous donation of china.

The garden is fabulous, fabulous, fabulous…. The zinnias that we planted from seed, stand four feet tall and are gorgeous. The monarch butterflies look so pretty on the blooms, but we still have not captured a photo.  The monarch caterpillars have been munching the milk weed plants. This guy was on a swamp milkweed plant. The common milkweed pods are beginning to mature…seeds for next year.  Placing seeds in paper bags is best as plastic bags will trap moisture and possibly rot the seeds.  Paper lunch bags work well.

The colors in the garden are wonderful.  The yellow blooms in the photo are on a popcorn plant.  If you rub the leaves it smells just like buttered popcorn.  The feathery white flowers are Diamond Frost Euphorbia, a nice companion plant with the red impatiens.

Come enjoy the garden and see the “new” old gate.  Happy Gardening……Kerry