The West Chicago Garden Club

This month’s article was written by Keith Letsche

Gardening with Presidents

With Valentine’s Day and the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, February is the month of Love and Presidents. We always hear about gardens and love, but not much about gardens and presidents. So while the Kruse House garden is closed for renovation and remodeling by Mother Nature, Inc., this month, let’s take a look at presidential gardening.Between this month’s presidential birthday boys, its seems that George Washington, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, might also be first in presidential gardening. Although he never gardened at the White House (it wasn’t finished until after his death), Mt. Vernon was celebrated in his times for its plantings. In particular, there were so many rose bushes that it took twelve days to harvest the petals which Martha made into rosewater.

Lincoln, it appears, didn’t go much in for gardening while president, probably because he was way too preoccupied by the Civil War, and which, growing up as the son of a hardscrabble frontier farmer, wouldn’t have had much appeal for him anyway. But Mary Todd took a great interest in gardening—or let’s say the money she got from it. It seems that “Mrs. President” (as she liked to be called) had the White House gardener pad his bills for manure and other gardening supplies, and then turn the excess over to her so she could buy more “flubdubs” (her husband’s term for them) to decorate the White House with.

Among other presidents, Jefferson, renowned horticulturalist though he was in addition to his other accomplishments, didn’t do much for gardening at the White House, and may have even set it back when he had seventy acres that were originally part of its grounds detached to create a public common. However, his successor, James Madison, made up for it by planting the first documented White House garden—not an ornamental garden, but one in which he grew varieties of cabbages, radishes, carrots, parsnips and other vegetables. It wasn’t so much that

Madison missed the fields of his Montpelier plantation as he needed what he grew for the lavish dinners Dolley and he gave, since presidents at the time didn’t receive a budget for state entertaining. John Quincy Adams might have been called “Johnny Appleseed,” or more precisely “Johnny Chestnut” or “Johnny Acorn,” because of all the trees he had planted at the White House.

Later presidents tended to be experimenters in their gardening. Woodrow Wilson used sheep to trim the White House lawn and free up its gardeners for service in World War I. Barack Obama introduced beehives on the White House grounds, which produced 140 pounds of honey their first year. But perhaps the most novel of the White House gardens was the idea not of a president but his wife, the beloved Rose Garden with its whimsical Alice in Wonderland characters, which Jackie Kennedy had installed as part of her undertaking as First Lady to brighten up the “dreary Maison Blanche.”

These and many other stories about presidential gardens can be found in Marta McDowell’s book, All the Presidents’ Gardens.

Our speaker this month will be Cindy Anderson who will be speaking on “A Native Gardens for Four Seasons”.  She describes this program as:

Native gardens are of increasing interest to home gardeners, but often they have a reputation of being messy or weedy. However, with a little bit of self-reflection about what is important to the gardener in their garden, a natives planting can be beautiful (in the eye of the gardener) and provide a benefit for ecosystem biodiversity. In this talk, I guide participants through choosing plants for a four-season garden, some tips on sources and a primer on design principles. This presentation discusses how to think about what “native” means to the individual gardener, why using natives is important and some examples of gardens that feature native plants. The talk concludes with a collection of native plants suitable for gardens here in northern Illinois.

Please join us for our monthly meeting on February 22nd at the Faith Community Church, 910 Main Street, West Chicago.  The meeting begins at 7:00pm, but we have refreshments starting at 6:45pm.  Guests are always welcome to come check out the club at one of our meetings.

The two faces of January – One to look forward and one to look back.

Back: the Kruse House Gardeners estimate they collectively spent between 450 – 500 hours in the garden last year. Angie, Tom, Kerry, and Billie worked pretty much every Wednesday morning and Keith and Jan Grismore were there about half the time. Barbara Darrah is considering throwing her hat into the garden. We hope to see her regularly next year as well.

We maintained and beautified. Nothing exceptional, but the garden looked good all year. The GC held our June meeting in the garden, Gallery 200 sponsored an “art in the garden” event, and the Historical Society held their Ice Cream Social in the garden. The Saturday Kruse House Museum visitors enjoyed the garden and the neighbors, especially the condo dwellers, found pleasure in the garden as well.  The garden is a
casual sanctuary for an untold number of guests. The birds and the pollinators left notes thanking us for providing home and food for them as well.

Forward: April will be right along and we will again clean up the garden and meet the new year with enthusiasm. The “to do” list includes trimming shrubs and removing some of the mountain of yard waste that has accumulated along the east fence. That’s just for starters. Our planning is fluid so we’ll report progress as it develops.

— Billie Childress