The West Chicago Garden Club

by Christina Covarrubias

October brings more signs of changing seasons, brisk breezes, (sometimes) cooler temperatures, shorter days, and a riot of new colors appearing in the garden. Plant growth slows down, we as gardeners slow down, but things do not have to be blooming to be growing. A lesson for plants and people alike!

While walking around the Kruse garden you may see bright, red berries from viburnum and chokeberry shrubs, resilient flowers still in bloom from Japanese anemones, ageratum, Rozanne geranium, boneset, caryopteris shrubs, beautyberry shrub, lespedeza shrubs, aconitum, and ALL the many asters from east to west and north to south.

As we begin to put the garden to bed for the next season we have to pause to recognize some outstanding plants that survive our once-weekly tending. These plants include the coleus donated as plugs from Cantigny. Who knew they tolerated such dry, dry, dry conditions? The red batwing begonias in containers, fully 28-30 inches tall and gorgeous.

Finally, an honorable mention goes to our newest “archeological discovery” buried flagstones edging a central garden bed above the pond and leading down a path several feet. It may not be quite as exciting as when Christine Baxter, Dick and Barbara Darrah (among others) found the hole that was the pond or the stone steps buried in the hill! Still, the “Kruse crew” composed of our West Chicago Garden Club members continue to preserve this lovely little corner and discover garden design from over 100 years
ago. Come visit the garden any day during daylight hours. Come garden whenever you can Wednesdays 9-11:30am.

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.

The last day of July was a Wednesday and we stood in the Kruse House parking lot waiting for the driving rain to stop. Finally, we gave up, called it a day and prepared to meet on the coming hot, hazy days of August. Of course, the next Wednesday was a breezy perfect spring-like day. Here in the Midwest we never seem to know what the weather is going to do.

Nevertheless, it is August and as usual we are reaching into fall when I am not really through with summer. It used to be that summer lasted until Labor Day. It was a time for beach parties and barbeques and lazy days to read that novel waiting on the shelf. Now, it seems like, with back-to-school sales and upcoming elections, everything is pushing us towards fall.

Still, in the garden, August is the culmination of summer. Kruse glows with the hot pinks of phlox, the golden radiance of marigolds and black eyed susans and the scintillating red of the cannas and the perennial hibiscus.

These are nature’s warm colors flaunting themselves in her last fling of the summer with the red/gold of the Viburnum echoing August’s mellow fruitfulness. This is concentrated summer and we have a whole month to revel in it.

You are all welcome to join us at the Kruse garden to weed and deadhead on Wednesday mornings or to just walk around and enjoy summer’s last stand.