During two decades as the head of the greenhouse at Cantigny Park, Joseph R. Sable created a healthy volunteer program and helped establish a colorful and eclectic Idea Garden, an acre tract aimed at inspiring amateur gardeners.
Mr. Sable also oversaw the mechanization of Cantigny’s greenhouse, and helped put in place educational programs at the museum. But the Idea Garden was among his proudest accomplishments, said Liz Omura, curator of the Idea Garden.
“That was his baby,” she said. “And the public loves the Idea Garden to this day. I think he thought that it was a great addition to the main, formal gardens here.”
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1s151 Winfield Road, Wheaton, IL 60189, USA
Mr. Sable, 69, died of complications from esophageal cancer Saturday, Oct. 5, at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield , said his wife, Lana. He had lived in West Chicago since 1967.
Born in Westmoreland, Kan., Mr. Sable received a bachelor’s degree in horticulture from Kansas State University. He was recruited to work for the Ball Seed Co. in West Chicago. After a hitch in the Navy, he returned to Ball for several years.
He worked briefly for the West Chicago Park District, then ran a lawn maintenance and landscaping business for 17 years.
In 1987, a greenhouse was built at Cantigny, which is near Wheaton. Shortly afterward, Mr. Sable applied for the job as production director, running the greenhouse. He joined Cantigny in 1989.
Under Mr. Sable’s leadership, the greenhouse was computerized with humidity and temperature controls in the early 1990s. Around that same time, a nursery was added behind Cantigny’s greenhouse.
In 1990, Mr. Sable’s managers asked him to create a different kind of a garden, based on a similar concept at the Longwood Gardens near Philadelphia. The result was the Idea Garden, with a variety of concepts and designs aimed at the amateur gardener. Among other things, the Idea Garden was aimed at demonstrating how to develop a vegetable garden in a suburban environment.
“The Idea Garden was meant as something the homeowner could achieve in their own yard,” Omura said.
In 1990, Sable told the Tribune the Idea Garden was “kind of an imaginary giant backyard.”
“We’ve tried to think of as many things as possible to include,” he said. “On a really nice Sunday, we’ll have 1,000 people out here. You see people taking notes. You see them taking pictures.”
Mr. Sable told the Tribune in 2004 that the Idea Garden “has a whimsical quality to it. Our ideas come from visiting other gardens, from magazines and from our volunteers.”
Mr. Sable also helped start a volunteer program in the gardens, increasing the number from about 10 volunteers at the start to some 250, Omura said.
“He loved talking to our volunteers,” Omura said. “He had a very good rapport with them and also with staff in our department and other departments.”
Lou Marsico, vice president of operations for the Cantigny Foundation and the foundation’s onetime director of finance, praised Mr. Sable’s integrity.
“He led by example and I know that’s cliche, but he truly did,” Marisco said. “He was always soft-spoken, but when Joe had something to say, everybody listened because it was always spot-on.”
In the 1990s, Mr. Sable and Jim Schuster, a now-retired University of Illinois Extension Service horticulture and plant pathology educator, appeared regularly on CLTV to discuss gardening.
“Joe would talk about growing, and I would talk about the problems that plants would run into, since I’m a plant pathologist,” Schuster said. “Joe was very outgoing and pleasant to work with. He was always an upbeat guy.”
Mr. Sable retired from Cantigny in 2009. He took some time off before returning as a volunteer, operating its tram and sharing his knowledge of Cantigny with visitors, his wife said.
“He always felt Cantigny had been very good to him and to us, and he felt like he’d like to do something (as a volunteer) because he loved Cantigny,” she said.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Sable is survived by three daughters, Heather Frerichs, Dawn and Peggie Bicking; two brothers, Francis and Louis; a sister, Mary Delpup; and three grandchildren.
Services have been held.
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