The West Chicago Garden Club

Our September speaker will be Diane Blazek, Executive Director of All-America Selections and National Garden Bureau. Diane has been deeply (and happily!) immersed in gardening from an early age. From growing up on a small family farm to her small suburban lot, she is passionate about everything green.

After spending 15 years with Ball Publishing, Diane moved to take on her current role where she can be even closer to the end consumer. Both organizations are in an exciting period of growth and influence both inside and outside the industry. Innovative ideas and progressive programs for consumers, garden
communicators, public gardens, and a full range of growers and retailers have benefited home gardeners, master gardeners and hobby farmers.

Diane Blazek’s presentation is titled: Behind the Scenes of the Horticulture Industry: How Plants get From Here to There and Other Cool Facts about the Industry. Are you an inquisitive type? Do you like knowing “How was that made?” Or do you look at your garden and wonder how that plant came to be? Diane Blazek has been involved in the horticulture industry since 1993 and is ready to share some behind the scenes facts and figures about how plants get from the breeding fields and greenhouses to your garden. Along the way, a few fun facts are thrown in for an even more interesting evening

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

By Keith Letsche

The Containers: The Gardens within the Garden at Kruse

White alyssum overflows in abundance
from this contemporary-styled urn by the
front steps of the house

Thinking of the Kruse House garden brings to mind rock-terraced rows of summer phlox, rudbeckia, cone flowers, and other tall perennials. But then there are the containers, bits of garden within the Kruse Garden, bursting with coleus, ornamental cabbage, and other flashy annuals that are in distinct contrast to the clumps of natives that predominate in the beds. Placed at strategic points, like the main entry to the house or the end of a bed, they draw the eye to these points or ornament what would otherwise be a baren space.

In the most spectacular urn of all that
anchors the front street-facing bed, a
canna flames over brightly colored
coleus.

Unlike the recovered rock terraces, the containers are a modern addition to the Kruse garden. The Victorian penchant for garden urns having faded by the time of the Kruse House’s building in 1917, virtually no outdoor pots or urns appear in historic photos of the grounds, and although a number of trellises survive from when the Kruses lived in the house, no containers do. The containers therefore give a contemporary feel to the garden, but not enough to distract from the overall sense of its historical nature. So, the next time you are at Kruse, stop and look at—and even sniff—the planted containers.