The West Chicago Garden Club

Happy Returns : The title is not referring to the splendid yellow day lily with that name nor is it a salutation to offer hope that a happy day will recur many more times. It is to say we are awaiting the happy returns of the Kruse Garden plants. The third worst ever Chicago winter is likely to delay Spring blossoms somewhat but the daffodils and grape hyacinths will be back! As will the short purple iris with those wowie blue fuzzy things and this gorgeous orange and rose streaked tulip will not be far behind. It’s amazing how much better it feels when you conjure up those plants in anticipation of Spring. Tom Angie and Billie will be back in the garden too and this year we will have a new partner to work with. Continue Reading »

Another year at the Kruse Garden—the shrubs are larger, the trees taller, perennials have filled in the bare spots, the need for annuals—very minimal.  Over-all the garden has structure, spring bulbs, summer flowers and fall color.  In October we put the garden to bed.

Looking back at the start of our work, we are pleased in having incorporated many features of old gardens, though with some tweaks in plant material.

In the early part of the 1900’s people gardened more for food and the flowers in the garden were those which were care-free or herbal, medicinal, etc.  Shrubs as lilacs, peonies, bridal wreaths, mock oranges, etc. were grown many times as specimens, not part of a shrub border, with of course, the family standing in front for pictures.  The early gardeners also prized some labor-intensive plants as dahlias and canna lilies, and certainly would not have put golden rod or joe pie weed into their flower garden.  Garden circles in the middle of the lawn were popular, with uniform plants around a specimen plant in the middle edged with bricks, stones, or little fencing. Continue Reading »

Work at the Kruse House is almost over for the year but not before a number of things are done. For the last few weeks we have been planting for the coming year. Thanks to Marion, who was kind enough to donate some of her plants to the house.  These plants were planted at various areas, but a good portion were planted on the East side of the property. This is a difficult area as we have planted there before with some problems. The new plants should fit in well.

We presently have a number of Rose of Sharon trees which we planted from seedlings. Several of these trees were dug up and moved into the area near the tool shed. All of these trees had their top and bottom branches removed in order to make them bushier next year. The area of the tool shed also had some major cutting done to the large evergreen bushes located there. This evergreen had become just a bit overgrown and was up against the tool shed itself. We removed a lot of material from the bottom, as well as the top, and it now looks great. This cutting will also allow the plants under it to grown much better as the sun light can finally get to them. Continue Reading »