The West Chicago Garden Club

If you’ve been reading garden magazines lately, you’ve probably come across articles extolling and listing the best new annuals/perennials, or the best sun/shade plants of all time, etc.  Well since its winter and gardening is all talk and no action I thought I would talk about ten of our favorite plants in the Kruse Garden and why we like them.

Bergenia, aka Saxifraga or Pig Squeak:  We have it in the back garden.  It makes a nice evergreen border and it’s a tough plant, doesn’t suffer unduly in drought (the back garden is always dry as a bone), and its thick shiny leaves hold up well throughout the seasons.  Trim off a few dead leaves in the spring and they’re good to go.  The clumps increase slowly and there’s no self-seeding to control.  Here’s a remarkable fact: Jeff Handel grew Bergenia from seed last year and generously donated some to the plant sale!  I’ve never known anyone else to grow this plant from seed.

Yellow Daylily we call Carole’s Father’s Daylily:  Carole Bates, a charter member of our GC, gave us this one.  We know its old but don’t know its real name.  There are three or four clumps of it in the back garden.  We like it because it’s sturdy tall scapes bear numerous clear yellow flowers and the spent flowers drop easily. We divided it for plant sale last year but are likely to do so again this year.  Clumps multiply quickly!

Bleeding Hearts:  everyone’s garden favorite is one of ours too.  We have both white and pink in Angie’s garden above the pond.  They are pretty and sturdy. What more can I say!

Bears Breech’s aka Acanthus:  it’s unusual so it adds some pizazz to the back garden.  It came from Angie’s garden and it has done very well with no special care.  Nothing in the garden gets “special care.”

Hosta, green margin cream center, medium size:  Right!  We don’t know its name.  We will have to invite Pam Caligiuri to identify it……she can ID hundreds of hostas by sight!  It’s a foundation planting on the east side of the house that looks good year after year and predates any of         us current gardeners.  Leaves remain intact and it tolerates drought well.  Not much moisture reaches it but no worries, it thrives and looks good all year, year after year!

Lespedeza aka Bush Clover:  another plant that you don’t find in everyone’s garden.  It provides a statement at 6-8 ft. and late season color behind the yellow shed. Marion Martin donated 3 of these lovelies … Thanks again, Marion!

Hardy Ageratum aka Eupatorium coelestinum:  this one is in several gardens…back, east side and pond gardens.  We like its bluish purple flowers in the fall and so far haven’t experienced any of the aggressive spreading noted in resources describing this plant.

William Baffin shrub Rose:  pretty in pink at 8-10 ft. blooms prolifically in June.  ARS (American Rose Society) rating 8.9. Besides being pretty it’s tough as blazes!

Fothergilla shrub:  provides 3 season interest in the back garden with fluffy white spring    blossoms, thick dark green foliage and riotous orange red fall color.  Can’t beat that with a stick!

Dawn Redwood tree:  Donated by Meyer Landscaping about 5 years ago to replace a big old black cherry that croaked.  It survived some significant storm damage and has almost doubled in size.  With mature dimensions at 60-80 ft. tall and 20-30 ft. wide this tree will provide lovely bones to define a large part of this garden as time goes forward.

It was hard to whittle the list to just 10 since we really like all our plants.  If you ask me next month I might have already changed my list. However, you couldn’t go wrong with choosing any of these plants for your own gardens.

The last Monday in October was our final work day at the Kruse Museum. We admired the fall colors of the serviceberries, maples, and smoke bushes. We noted the last great plant combinations—blue ageratum with cream feverfew, pale yellow nasturtiums with a blanket flower. The cotoneasters are beautiful in fall. They have small red-orange leaves with many red berries.

We cut back perennials and annuals, stored garden decorations and generally spruced up the garden for the winter. Our time together in the garden was fun. It’s a place where we tried out plants, discussed plants, admired some and pulled others. I’m sure this winter we will again look through garden books and hopefully find some new ideas for “our” garden.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are some taken in the garden.

The West Chicago Historical Society’s annual Ice Cream Social was a big hit again this year. It was a gorgeous day and people turned out to enjoy the excellent baked goods provided. The garden co-operated fully and never looked better, and everybody enjoyed a great event.

Well folks, here it is October already, and it’s time to shut down our gardens for the winter. All the plants and flowers that we enjoyed so much this summer will be covered with snow in a couple of months.

Being that it is almost Halloween I’m going to relate what happened to me several weeks ago. For those of you who know me, and those of you who don’t, I love Halloween. I decorate my house, and my yard. A couple of years ago a friend of mine gave me several Japanese Lantern plants. I have planted them in several areas of my yard. A number of these plants came up near the entrance of my driveway. One thing about Japanese Lantern plants is that they grow where they want to. For those not familiar with these plants, they have small flowers that look like little orange lanterns. Anyway, I have got these little lanterns growing and the more I looked at them the more I realized that they look like little pumpkins. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if these little “pumpkins” had little Jack-o-Lantern faces on them. My Granddaughter would just love them. So I get my black marker out, and draw small Jack-o-lantern faces on each lantern, all sixteen of them. It was a sight to behold. I couldn’t wait for her to see them.

Not dwelling on what I had done, I kind of forgot about lanterns. That was until, a lady knocked on my front door holding one of the little lanterns in her hand. She said that her and her two children walking by and her five year old son had spied the Jack-o-Lanterns. He had run up and picked one of the little lanterns, and then brought it back to show his Mother. Being a good Mother, she felt it necessary to apologize for her son’s actions. I thanked her, and told her to keep the lantern for her son. She then asked me about the plant itself, and wanted to know where she could buy these Jack-o-lantern plants. She said she was not from around here and had never seen anything like them. She expressed an apparent interest to grow these herself. Oh-Oh, what do I say now? Do I admit that I’m a bit crazy, and spent an hour drawing faces on my plants. Or do I make up some story about how these are experimental plants that are not on the market yet. Now, for those of you who know me, and those of you who don’t, Happy Halloween. Oh, and by the way, keep your eyes open for the new Jack-o-Lanterns plants, soon to be available at your local greenhouse.