The West Chicago Garden Club

“Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay. My, oh my what a wonderful day!”

We’ve had a lot of wonderful days with plenty of sunshine and, until recently, plenty of rain. So, it’s been a pleasure gardening this year! The Kruse garden is looking good, and it better be, because there’s a big event coming up.

Attention Please! Historical Society’s Ice-cream Social and Silent Auction, 12-3 PM, Saturday, September 7, (nice of them to have it on B’s birthday) in the Kruse Garden. It’s a great opportunity to tour the house (special display this year is ‘cats & dogs… & bunnies too’) and… have a big brick of ice-cream with a huge selection of home baked cakes, pies, and other tantalizing treats! The auction items always include unique, useful and ‘one of a kind’ items. It’s fun! Stop by, eat, tour (house & garden), bid, and visit with friends… what a great way to spend some time on a fall Saturday afternoon. See you there! Continue Reading »

Summer is finally here in all its glory and the Kruse House gardens are in full bloom. No matter where you look you will see something wonderful. And the colors this year are outstanding.

The Yucca plants are blooming and look better this year than they ever had. Just in back of the Yucca plants are the Smoke Bushes. The color of these bushes is hard to describe. Each year we cut these bushes down quite low, and each Spring they come back. The plants which are planted on the hill require very little care. The weeds are another story, it keeps us busy trying to control them. Most plants on the hill require very little water, other than what nature gives them. This area is in full sun most of the day but due to the selection of plants they thrive here. Continue Reading »

I know you read this on page one but it bears repeating… the June 27^th general monthly meeting of the Garden Club will be held at the Kruse Garden. Arrive a little early to allow time to stroll around and get a good look at the gardens. Don’t miss this opportunity to gather in a lovely garden.  If the weather won’t cooperate we will have to go to our usual meeting place at the church.  Boo hoo if that happens!

One thing you want to check out is the stone wall behind the pond.  Pam Lurz and her husband Greg did a superb job of rebuilding it! As you can see they are hard at work on the left and right shows wall half done.  It went from a messy pile of rocks to a handsome stacked wall with about 12hours of their skilled labor. Pam says “We started building stone walls in our own yard because it has lots of small flagstones buried in the soil. I’ve always joked that we could build a quarry in our back yard. In one area it’s almost 50% rock. After a while we started using the rocks to edge the grass and then started building low stone walls.”  We are very grateful for their work! Thank you Pam & Greg!

The honeysuckle vine by the shed door is a handsome sight and the iris right next to it was stunning!  See you in the garden.