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

Well Folks, our June meeting at the Kruse House was quite a meeting. And, due to the weather, it almost didn’t happen. We have to thank Donna and Kent Orlendeni for their assistance in setting up the chair and tables. And also a Thank You to Dick Darrah, who made the decision to go ahead with the meeting. As it turned out, it was a pretty good night, and from what I could tell a lot of members enjoyed the gardens, and the speaker.

The speaker at this meeting was a very creative lady who I think was named Nancy. This lady would take old used items and make them into something which was either useful, or decorative, or both. There was no end to the things this lady could make. She really inspired me to see if I could do as she did. I could not wait to get home and start making stuff.

My first attempt was one that I had made before, the tin can telephone. I thought my Grand Daughter would love it. So I got a couple of cans, cut off the tops, punched holes in them and put a string in them and I was ready to go. My Brother stopped over and saw me making my phone and we decided to give them a test. He took one of the cans and went around the side of the house, and we started talking. Then I heard him yell “Ouch”. He then came back holding his ear. Apparently I didn’t cut the top of the can too well and when he put it up his ear, well you know what happened. But hey, it was a small cut (two band aids); I then deposited the “phones” in the re-cycle bin.

My second attempt at “creative re-cycling” involved an old tennis ball which I found on my work bench. I decided that this would make a great set of ear protectors for when I cut the grass. So I cut the ball in half and screwed a piece of plastic on them. I put them on and out to the yard I went. As I was cutting the Parkway the cars going past me seemed to honking their horns, and yelling something. I don’t know what they were saying because I had my new ear protectors on. But when people started waving tennis rackets at me, I felt it was time to hang them

After two failed attempts, I decided to go into the house and have a cup of tea. But, I had no teabags. Another chance for me to re-cycle. I got some tissue paper, red and green Christmas type, some loose tea, some string from my failed tin can phone and my stapler. Now I had a very stylish teabag, time for tea. Up until this point I was not aware that the coloring used in tissue paper was not colorfast. I know now.

All things considered, I think that I will not try to re-cycle quite so much anymore. I hope you have better luck with your projects.

Happy Gardening,
Tom

Boom!

May and early June were sensational at the Kruse Garden.  It seemed as though nothing was coming back and then suddenly…boom! Plants woke up from the long, hard winter and exploded into bloom. First thing every Wednesday morning our team walks the garden. We look at what’s currently blooming, what’s starting to peek out and what tasks we want to complete.  You can hear our “oohs” and “aahs”…not unlike hearing a crowd watching fireworks.

The peony displays were spectacular!  The Single Shell Peony, donated by Billie, has large single flowers of delicate pink with yellow centers.  In front of the house is a lightly scented, semi-double flower peony, from Klemms Nursery, that stands upright over three feet.  Behind the garage, is a fabulous pink, full double bloom peony, original to the house. Its fragrance is incredible! The back and side gardens contain several other vintage varieties, including bomb-type flowers.

Rosa Glauca gave us an impressive show. The oldest rose in the garden, has fragile, clear pink flowers. The species name of glauca refers to the bluish-green coloring found on many of the leaves.

Other lovely shows were the Lemon Lily, the first lily to bloom in the garden. It looks like lemon sherbet…good enough to eat. The Orion Geranium has a vibrant blue-violet bloom and puts on a spectacular foliar display in autumn. Some gardeners believe Orion is a true rival of the pretty Rozanne Geranium also found in the Kruse garden.

Selecting the right plants for under the large tree in the front yard has been a challenge. The area is dry and shady.  We planted some Canadian Wild Ginger that will spread slowly, and we hope to have a dense bed in a few years.

Angie is our designer…she has a good eye for staging plants for texture, color, height and bloom time.  Billie is our walking plant encyclopedia and knows the Latin names as well as the common names.  They both really know their plants and how to care for them. Tom and I are learning a lot from them.

Come join us in the garden.  Help us tend the lovely plants or just stroll and enjoy.

Kerry, Billie, Angie & Tom