The West Chicago Garden Club

All-America Selections (AAS) is a 90 year-old non-profit, but don’t think of this as grandma’s organization! AAS is stronger and more encompassing than ever before. With almost 1000 varieties that have been declared as AAS Winners over the years, it’s almost guaranteed that you have some AAS Winners in your garden.

Come listen to Executive Director Diane Blazek as she gives a high-energy presentation about the AAS Trials, Display Gardens and shows you some tantalizing varieties you will want for your own gardens. 

Diane Blazekis the Executive Director of All-America Selections® and National Garden Bureau. For more than 30 years, Diane has been immersed in gardening both personally and professionally. She brings a passion to the subject based on a history in the field of horticulture publishing as well as a love for gardening and culinary exploration.

Growing up on a small family farm in northern Missouri, Diane spent years helping her parents plant, tend and harvest a large home vegetable garden. As the president and publisher at Ball Publishing for 15 years, she led the way in connecting the commercial side of the industry with consumers via the live focus groups called Consumer Buzz Live! Diane also managed Ball Publishing’s entry into consumer garden book publishing.

Since December of 2009, Diane has been leading both All-America Selections and National Garden Bureau through an exciting period of growth as they establish themselves as inspirational resources in the minds of garden communicators, public gardens, growers, garden retailers and home gardeners.

Join us at St Andrew Lutheran Church (NE Corner of Prince Crossing & Geneva Road) at 7:00PM on Thursday, September 23rd.

This summer, the West Chicago Garden Club will fill the Kruse Garden with Bees created by our amazing artists. We want to provide a small taste without spoiling the surprise of the completed Bees, so here is a “quilt” of small details. The full set of Bees will be unveiled in May and the garden will be buzzing throughout the summer.

The Garden Club Board met in February and decided that since in person meetings will not be possible until Spring, that we will try to have a few Zoom monthly meetings this winter.  Barb Melville has found us a speaker for the February meeting and Dan Beebe is setting up a few “practice” Zoom meetings to help everyone get comfortable with the technology.

If you haven’t used Zoom yet, it is possible to join a Zoom meeting from many different types of devices.  You can use most types of computers (Apple, Windows, Linux, Chromebook) and most phones and tablet devices. See page 9 for a little more information on getting started with Zoom.

The “practice” Zoom meetings will allow you to join a meeting and make certain that you are setup and ready to go before the February meeting.  If all goes well, members who are at a practice meeting should be able to chat a little with each other as well.

You will receive 3 emails from the Garden Club with invitations to the practice meetings.  You only need to attend one to make sure you are setup for the February meeting.

Practice Zoom Meeting Dates

From 7:00 to 8:00pm on the following days

February 10

February 16

February 18