Comments (…)
Gardening ideas abounded Saturday during the McHenry County Master Gardener Garden Walk.
The walk, presented by the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardeners of McHenry County and McHenry County College, featured nine gardens in locales from Crystal Lake to Chemung.
Even the rain that fell from time to time was a welcome part of the event rather than a spoiler.
A group of my friends are regulars on this walk. They invited me along this year, so I got to experience it for the first time.
For me, gardening is a bit of a pie-in-the-sky endeavor. I’m more than happy to collect ideas. But as for actually turning them into reality, well, that’s been more elusive.
My mother used to have a huge garden and grew an abundance of vegetables that she’d can, freeze and give away.
So the Harvard “Growing Together” Community Garden brought back a few memories, with its rows of beans, kohlrabi, cabbage, peppers and the like.
Under master gardener and coordinator Steven DeBerg, it’s a little more high-tech than the garden my mother tended. There is a system of raised beds, drip irrigation and plastic mulch.
Last year, the community garden produced an impressive 6,800 pounds of vegetables that were donated to the Harvard Food Pantry.
In the Harvard prairie garden at the home of Betsy and Joe Sternberg there is a sign with a poem by Emily Dickinson. It sums up the beauty of this natural area perfectly: “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee / One clover, and a bee / And revery. / The revery alone will do, / If bees are few.”
The three-acre prairie brims with native plants, such as rattlesnake master, purple cornflower, wild bergamot, rough blazing star and wild quinine.
Not only does it remind visitors of the way McHenry County used to be years ago, but it also shows that not every “garden” needs to be structured and ordered.
A similar, though more planned, approach can be seen in the wonderful gardens at the Frisbie home in Woodstock. There, an impressive water feature flows into a European-style “swimming pool.” The plantings are natural and less “tidy” than in other gardens, but the profusion of flowers is just as lovely.
Not to be missed was a “green roof” atop the family’s chicken house, planted with a variety of sedum.
Marlene Frisbie credits a landscaping class at MCC as the genesis for this ever-evolving garden.
So I guess there’s hope for me yet.
Other gardens offered ideas for adding whimsy, grouping plants for impact, mixing colors in an artistic way, and making the most of a suburban setting.
The VanMaren garden in Harvard even included a 30-foot-high windmill built from plans imported from Holland.
Needless to say, I now have more ideas than I know what to do with.
Gardening, it is said, is good for the soul.
I’d add that walking through other people’s gardens isn’t bad, either.
• Joan Oliver is the assistant news editor for the Northwest Herald. She can be reached at 815-526-4552 or by email at joliver@shawmedia.com.
Comments
Add Comments
There are 30 hours, 22 minutes remaining to comment on this story.
You must register with a valid email to post comments. Your first name, last initial, hometown and username will appear with your comments.
Click here to read the rules for posting comments
Speak Your Mind