The West Chicago Garden Club

This amazing cake was courtesy of member Marilyn Santos McNabb

Originally posted on our Facebook page by our Publicity Director, Ruth Gauss.

At our club meeting last week we celebrated a very special moment. Billie Childress was given a Lifetime Membership to the club in recognition for all of her hours of service and dedication. We hope you were in attendance, but if not here are some information that our club president, Dan Beebe, shared about Billie’s time as a club member.

First seen on a 2002 Membership list (22 years), she jumped right in volunteering for the club.

In the last 22 years, Billie has been:

• Club President
• Vice President
• Program Director
• Plant Sale – Plant Acquisition & Digging Squad
• Workshop Presenter
• Public Art Coordinator
• Kruse House Garden Coordinator w/ Angie Sadauskus (starting 2007)
• Kruse House Garden Chair on the board once it became a position until her “retirement” at the end of 2023

For the Kruse House Garden, she has been Landscape Architect, Gardener, & an overall advocate. Billie, along with her dedicated crew of Kruse House Gardeners, was instrumental in making the garden into what you see today.

Tonight, I am pleased to announce, on behalf of the club’s board of directors and general membership that Billie Childress has been granted a Lifetime Membership in the West Chicago Garden Club.

In addition, the club has purchased a bench, to be installed later this year in a West Chicago Park District Park. This bench will bear the following inscription:

Honoring Billie Childress
for her passionate service
to the Kruse House Garden
and West Chicago Garden Club

Photographs compliments of Claudia Frost

By Dee Soustek

The gardeners are back!   So are the weeds and the plants that love to reseed!  It’s been fun reconnecting to the garden and especially the Kruse gardeners!  Everything is green, vibrant, and looking good. 

Most of the spring bulbs have finished blooming giving way to the next group of spring blooming plants. The Irises are throughout the gardens, most of the dwarf crested irises have finished blooming waiting for the tall bearded Irises to make their appearance. They all have big buds, getting ready for their time to shine.  You should stop by to check them out as well as the Poppies that are ready to Pop and of course I can’t forget the peonies!  Be sure to check out the peonies by the front entrance, they are spectacular. The Alliums are dotted throughout the garden and look so beautiful especially when the sun lights them up. They seem to multiply but not problematic, we can easily move them to other areas. 

The Lilacs are finishing up. They looked fantastic, and the fragrance was heavenly!  Kruse has such a nice variety of lilacs which is so fitting for the historical home, as is,the Bridal Wreath, Spirea that is around the entrance and along the fence line. 

We welcome you to visit Kruse House Gardens and if you are interested in working in the gardens we are there Wednesdays, 9:00 to 11:30am. Happy gardening!   

By Christina Covarrubias 

West Chicago Garden Club gardeners returned to the garden at the Kruse House museum property just last week and will meet every Wednesday from 9-11am weather permitting.

Gardening began just in time to inhale all the beauty of spring. Literally, at every turn in the garden there is a bright spot of color from the flowering barrenwort along the sidewalk, tulips dotting the landscape, Virginia bluebells, pink and purple lungwort, hot pink pigsqueak, a showstopper of a magnolia tree to blankets of violet-hued grape hyacinths that are children, grandchildren and great grandchild (probably) of the original ones planted by the Kruse family. A picture will not do it justice to represent how lovely the garden is in spring.

Ephemeral bulbs are not the only thing of interest in the garden. There are several unique species of trees including ginkgo, dogwood, London planetree, an original pear tree, and even a once-thought-extinct Dawn Redwood.

Just a note, from the Metasequoia genus native to China, a forester rediscovered Dawn Redwoods in one single Chinese region during the 1940’s. This led to seed collection and distribution around the world. The deciduous Dawn Redwood species sets itself apart from the other two redwoods species (Great Sequoia and Coast Redwood) by changing color to a rusty orange in the fall and then dropping its leaves. Such a treasure to have in this garden!

If you find yourself driving down Main Street at any time you should pull in the driveway and take a short (or long!) stroll around the garden.