The West Chicago Garden Club

By Keith Letsche

Beebalm

The long, hot summer is here, with more 90-plus degree days already than the whole of last year. The sultry weather, however, has not deterred the dedicated Kruse House crew from gathering each Wednesday morning to work in the garden. With the copious rains in May and June and now the warmth and meticulous tending by the crew, the garden is beautifully arrayed with all kinds of mid-summer blooms.

Early July, of course, is lily time, and lush banks of Mary Todds, Stella d’Oro, and other varieties of day lilies are everywhere. Most sensational are a dark purple variety planted in the new front yard bed on the east side of the house that are blooming for the first time. There are also spectacular thickets of crimson beebalm and feathery purple larkspur. Virtually all of the yuccas this year are topped with tall thick stalks of creamy white bell-shaped flowers, thanks probably also to our hot days. Perhaps the loveliest site is the pond, which is abloom with lavender water hyacinths and pink water lilies.

One of the projects this year was the enlargement of the new front yard bed mentioned earlier to include a small tree. A hornbeam was selected and delivered and planted in mid-June, and then almost lost to the excessive heat at the end of that month. However, the tree seems to have recovered and is doing well

Now is the time to come and see the Kruse House garden. If you wait until August, the show will be over.

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