we go gardening · 2014-04-19 · we go gardening volume 12 issue 8 august 2009 page 2 upcoming...

Inside this issue

Newsletter of the West Chicago Garden Club www.westchicagogardenclub.org

WE GO GARDENING

Volume 12 I s sue 8 August 2009

Non-club Events 2010 Garden Walk

2

WCGC Calendar Club information

3

News from Kruse 4

Garden Dollars 5

Contest Winners Greener Gardening

6

August 28th Meeting : “Kermit was Wrong: It’s Easy Being Green”

Susan Grupp is a topflight environmental and horticultural educator for the U. of Illinois Extension, as well a cable TV and radio garden talk show host. She will bring us up to date on the latest trends in eco- friendly gardening practices.

Faith Community Church at 910 Main Street in West Chicago

7:00 - refreshments, 7:15 - brief business meeting, 7:30 - speaker

President’s Dinner and Garden Contest Winners - July Meeting Wasn’t that a fun meeting in July? During dinner of chicken, meatballs, wonderful side dishes, and fabulous desserts, we were joined by all but one of our garden contestants (and newest members). Then, a narrated slide show illustrated the beautiful gardens of the con-test. Finally, the winners in each of the three categories were announced. See more on page 6.

Babysitting—The Club provides babysitting during its regular monthly meet-ings when held at Faith Community Church. There is no fee to you for the ser-vice, but if you plan to use it, please call Linda Harl-son at 377-5750, so we can plan for the right number of children.

Rides— Need a ride to the meeting? Call Billie Childress at 231-1791 the Wednes-day before the meeting.

FOR THE NOVEMBER AUCTION: We’re looking for donations for the November auction. These can be hand-crafted items, artistic garden accoutrements, garden-related miscellany, preferably new items. If you have something, bring it to a meeting, and leave it with Jeff Handel.

Next Meeting: Thursday, September 24th:

“THE HOSTA: AMERICA’S FAVORITE SHADE PERENNIAL”

Our own Lou Horton (he’s also current president of both the Northern Illinois and Midwest Regional Hosta Societies) will share his passion for hostas with us.

We Go Gardening

Volume 12 Issue 8 August 2009 www.westchicagogardenclub.org

Upcoming events (outside the club) Heinz Brothers Greenhouse: Fall Planter Demonstration Class, Sept 5 or 6, 11-11:30 a.m., Sept 9, 6-6:30 p.m. Cold weather tolerant plant material in various color ranges will be discussed and techniques will be shown during the demonstration. Free, please call for reservations. 630-377-6288.

Forest Preserve District of DuPage County : Country Fair, Kline Creek Farm, Winfield, Sept 5, 10 - 4. Experience an old-fashioned fair from the county's agricultural past, including blue ribbons, games, entertainment, antique equipment, Professor Marvel's Amazing Flea Circus, and more. Free. 630-876-5900.

The Growing Place: Front Porch Decorations for Fall August 29, 10 a.m. Aurora, 2 p.m. Naperville. Collect ideas for bringing the rich colors of fall into your front entrance. Free. More information at http://www.thegrowingplace.com/classes.htm

Cantigny: Cantigny Green Fair: Cantigny and SCARCE will host this first-ever Green Fair on Saturday, September 26. The event, from 10 am to 4 pm, will celebrate what’s working in our community—for people, businesses and the environment. The Cantigny Green Fair line-up includes expert speakers, eco-activities for kids, a local and organic Farmers Market, cooking demos, organic wine tasting, live music and a “FashionEcoNista” show. All the events are free, and more than 100 vendors will be participating. In addition, high school and college students are invited to enter a Recycled Art Contest with cash prizes. This day will inspire all who attend. Questions? Please call 630 260 8266.

West Chicago Garden Club — 2010 Garden Walk Looking for volunteers to help! Plans are underway for our 2010 garden walk. By September the committee will have selected the gardens for the walk, scheduled to coincide with the Kruse Garden Open House, August 1, 2010. Several members have already volunteered to help on the garden walk committee, but we need more!. If you would like to help with this event, please contact Carole Bates, 630-293-4953.

665-1144 Winfield Road at

the Railroad

Paving, Terracing & Edging Materials

Concrete Retaining Wall Systems Landscaping Timbers

Decorative Gravel Shredded Cedar or Cypress Mulch Limestone Chips Heritage

Pebbles Meramec Gravel Sand Pebbles Red Lava Western Sunset

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Club Events - 2009

Club information www.westchicagogardenclub.org West Chicago Garden Club P. O. Box 313, West Chicago, IL 60186 (630) 585-4005

Membership information Dues for 2009: Individual: $15 Family: $25

2009 board President: Mark Luther (630) 876-1296, [email protected]

Vice President: Jeff Handel (630) 231-6765, [email protected]

Treasurer: Barb Darrah (630) 584-1900, [email protected]

Secretary: Aimee Townsend (630) 876-8588, [email protected]

Program Chair: Lou Horton (630) 293-7735, [email protected]

Information Director: Elaine McCluskey (630) 293-4773, [email protected]

Plant Sale Chair: Dick Darrah (630) 584-1900, [email protected]

Regular meeting location

Faith Community Church, 910 Main Street, West Chicago

Date Speaker Topic/Event

August 27 Susan Grupp Kermit was Wrong: It’s Easy Being

September 24 Lou Horton The Hosta: Amer-ica’s Favorite

October 22 Bob Fischer Attracting Birds to the Garden

November 19

Dinner and Garden Dollars Auction

PLEASE PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS!

And let them know that you appreciate their support of our club.

WCGC Board News

Board meetings are held monthly on the 2nd Thursday at 7 p.m. at Faith Community Church, West Chicago, and are open to anyone at any time. Please contact Mark Luther, board president for more information on any board ac-tivities.

We Go Gardening


August News From Kruse by Angie & Billie: Kruse Garden Coordinators Great Open Garden Party! A crowd of nearly 200 were delighted by the numerous attractions the event of-fered! It was a huge success and we want to say thanks to those who contributed to make our celebration in the garden fun!

Heartfelt thanks to:

Rosemary & Krista from the City’s Administrative Services for getting the ‘word out’

Stan the ‘sign man’ for the great signs….gratis

Tom, Angie, & Billie for prepping the gardens and demonstrating the crafts

The Historical Society for setting up tables/chairs and providing house tours

Garden club members for the baked goodies

Carole & Linda for greeting guests

Bonnie, Shirley, & Chris for serving

To all our guests for showing up and having fun

If we have inadvertently failed to mention your contribution, our sincere apologies! And please give us a nudge to let us know.

Now, it seems time to kick back and relax! Well, not really. The gardens need to hold up through the Historical Society ‘Ice Cream Social and Silent Auction’ to be held September 12th, 12-3 PM. Here’s another chance to enjoy the Kruse House and Garden and support the Historical Society. And, I believe, it’s a great excuse to have a yummy slice of cake or pie with ice cream for lunch! Tickets are $3.50 and include the chance to win a raffle item, bid on silent auction items and have your child participate in a cake walk. If you have anything to donate to the raffle/auction call Lance/Joan Conkright 630-231-2329. At this party you will find Angie, Tom and Billie holding down chairs, visiting with friends, and making new acquaintances! Suits us! We love that garden and couldn’t be happier than when folks are spending time there!

Of course, we are starting to plan for ‘next year’ in the garden. The ‘Garden Club sponsored Garden Walk’ will include the Kruse Garden. Yikes! Is there any end to all these events?!!! Just kidding….as I said earlier, we love ‘em! But, you can imagine there is a bit of pressure when gardeners enmasse, come, seeking pleasure and enlightenment from your garden! They will not be disappointed! If any of you have suggestions for improve-ments in the garden we would love to incorporate your ideas. Without the interest and support of garden club members we could not accomplish our work! We appreciate your input. We would love to hear from you!

As always, we look forward to visiting (and working) with you in the garden! A&B

We Go Gardening


Garden Dollars—have you been collecting yours? Have you been saving your Garden Dollars? You earn them by participating in club activities. Exam-ples of what you can earn:

Garden Dollars will be the only currency accepted at the November auction, where you will be able to use them at the auction to bid on fabulous prizes, like the mosaic gazing balls and other hand-crafted items, gift certificates to local retailers, and plants.

Garden Dollars are always available at the welcome table at meetings—just look for the bowl. This is done on the honor system, so take the dollars you’ve earned for any activities this year. (Pick up a handy envelope, too, so you don’t loose them!) Contact Jeff Handel with any questions, 231-6765.

Volunteer for workdays, plant sale or garden contest (1 to 4 hrs , >4hrs)

75 -150 Donate plants for the sale

<50 plants, 50-149 plants, >150 plants

75, 200, 300

Donate pots 50 Write newsletter article 100

Donate snack for meeting 75 Donate door prize 50

Set up or clean up meeting 25 Meeting attendance 25

Trip attendance 25 Pay dues before February 2nd 50

Donate to Kruse House 50

We Go Gardening


Greener Gardening: Making Better Choices in the Garden By Sharon Yiesla. Extension Educator, University of Illinois Extension Reprinted (partial) with permission from University of Illinois Extension Good Gardening Website #5 http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/goodgardening/

Mulching is a common and useful gardening practice, but we may want to take a closer look at the materials available for use, such as mulch. There are synthetic mulches, such as various plastics and weed barriers. When used properly, these products can be very successful in suppressing weeds. However, over time, these products will start to deteriorate and will need to be re-placed. This leaves us with something to throw away and send to the landfill.

Organic mulches have the benefit of filtering into the soil and im-proving it as they deteriorate. Therefore, they provide us with suppression of weeds, soil improvement over time, and no gar-bage to discard. The question now is “Are all organic mulches really environmentally friendly?”

The organic mulch that is surrounded by controversy at this time is cypress mulch. Cypress mulch is not harvested from a sustainable source (areas where trees are ‘farmed’ or replanted after harvesting) as other mulches are. Cypress mulch is harvested from natural cypress for-ests and these areas are not being replanted. This leads to injury to the environment since these natural cypress forests are an important part of their ecosystem.

Many gardeners prefer cypress mulch because of its longevity in the yard. This longevity is due to naturally occurring preservatives in the heartwood of the trees. However, this quality is actually being lost because so many young trees are being harvested. These young trees have not yet developed the heartwood that contains the natural preservative. Studies have shown that pine bark and other chipped woods are often as long lasting as the cypress being sold today.

So, while mulching is a sound gardening practice, we always need to select a mulch, based not only on its performance in the garden, but also for its impact on the environment.

Garden Contest Winners The first Wonderful Gardens of West Chicago Contest had entries in all 3 categories—9 in Category A (< 1/2 acre), 3 in Category B (> 1/2 acre), and 2 in the Special Feature Category. The slide show at the July meeting showed us how hard all the contestants had worked through the difficult spring and early summer weather to prepare for the contest. It’s clear there are a lot of dedicated gardeners in West Chicago! Thanks to all who entered! Thanks also to Carole Bates for coordinating the contest! The winners were: Category A—Mary Anne Young with her townhouse garden, Category B—Sam and Billie Childress with their many garden rooms, and Category C—Debby and Jerry Juzwiak with a waterfall garden. All winners received a hand-painted rock to display in their garden and a gift cer-tificate to Prosek’s Greenhouse.

we go gardening · 2014-04-19 · we go gardening volume 12 issue 8 august 2009 page 2 upcoming...

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