The West Chicago Garden Club

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

On Thursday, October 22nd at 2pm we will have Kim Hartman (one of our favorite presenters) from Countryside Flower Shop, Nursery and Garden Center join us for a fun program on how to make beautiful fall center pieces and put some spark into your outdoor containers.  Kim will also bring several of her creations that will be raffled off to the lucky winners! 

We will have cake and coffee and hopefully a beautiful day.  Bring your own chair, dress for the weather and if it’s a little chilly bring a lap blanket.  

The event will be cancelled if we have rain. 

If Kress Creek Farms sounds familiar it’s because this is the area and the barn where we held our potting parties for the last several years. The city of West Chicago has turned this farm area into a beautiful park with lots of space for social distancing and a pavilion where we will meet. Come early and explore the many lovely areas of this newly developed gathering place.

Kress Creek Farms houses an 18 cage Disc Golf Course, Chicago Bears playground and a trail system.  Located along Joliet Street on the south side of the city, Kress Creek Farms has rolling hills, native landscaping, and a small pond for catch and release fishing.

This has not been an easy summer for any of us.  I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago when I was sitting on the deck of our summer cabin looking down on the lake surrounded by the oranges, yellows and red of a Wisconsin autumn.  Now Wisconsin is dealing with a major Covid outbreak.  How lucky we are that so many of our families and friends have avoided this and my heart goes out to those who haven’t, and how lucky we are to have our yards and gardens to give us peaceful thoughts during this increased period of solitude.

Those of us working at Kruse have had a chance to meet each week to talk about plants, the weather and all those things that we gardeners enjoy.  The new plantings have taken well and the front bed replacing the big oak has filled in beautifully and entices anyone passing by to realize that there is a garden inside the fence worth visiting .

We’ve started wrapping things up for fall – deadheading, cutting back daylilies and iris, and just basking in the last blooms of summer.  Sometimes it is difficult for us to cut back the plants that we have nursed along so carefully all summer, but then there is that lovely spring morning when we see them shyly peeking their heads up once again.  I would like to share with you a poem I came across that echoes this thought.

September Tomatoes by Karina Borowicz

The whiskey stink of rot has settled
in the garden, and a burst of fruitflies rises
when I touch the dying tomato plants

Still the claws of tiny yellow blossoms
flail in the air as I pull the Vines up by the roots
and toss them in the compost.

It feels cruel.  Something in me isn’t ready
to let go of summer so easily.  To destroy
what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months.
Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit

My great grandmother sang with the girls of her village
as they pulled the flax.  Songs so old
and so tied to the season that the very sound
seemed to turn the weather.

I sincerely hope we will be able to start holding meetings again and to see all of you again in the spring along with the returning plants.