The West Chicago Garden Club

The Kruse House Gardeners have completed the last work day, officially closing out the 2023 gardening season at Kruse. It was a year of significant accomplishments with the refining of the bed front east side, the reworking of the bed at the end of the driveway, and the addition of many new plantings.

We leave you with these parting images of the garden in rapid transition: the fall asters and sedum in full bloom, the begonias and other spring potting plants reinvigorated by the cool fall days before the coming of a hard frost, and the cone flowers’ and other summer perennials’ withered blooms pointing ominously to the end of the season–all against a backdrop of colorful falling leaves. Enjoy!

(For more photos, see our October newsletter)

By Ruth Kyme

Our presenter, Ken Benson, is a landscape architect with degrees in horticulture from the University of Illinois. Ken will discuss the myth that gardening tools come from the store sharp. He will demonstrate how to use various sharpening stones to sharpen pruners, shovels, and all other gardening tools. You may bring a pair of hand pruners to be critiqued and if possible, sharpened with a hand file. Ken will try to sharpen as many pruners as possible, time permitting.

Benson is a landscape architect and was the host of cable TVs Landscaping with Ken Benson 1992-2000. He was a board member of the Chicago Flower and Garden Show 1998-2008 and a founding board member of MELA- Midwest Ecological Landscapers Association. Benson is also a past member of the Men’s Garden Club of Villa Park and has been giving programs since 1972 to garden clubs throughout the area.

REMINDER: If you still have pots that you would like to donate, our Plant Sale Chair people have organized to collect them at this month’s meeting. This is only for THIS month—we don’t have the space or time to handle this at other meetings. We are looking for 4” pots that we use for small plants and vegetables and for the standard gallon pots. Trays for both are also great. Ideally, we prefer pots that don’t have names/advertising printed on them, but we will take those. It would help, if you have the chance, to use a large sharpie to cross out whatever is printed on the pot and remove/cross out any labels on the pot.

by Barbara Darrah

“Try to remember a kind of September when grass was green and grain was yellow”
(Song by The Brothers Four)

I think of September as the most ambiguous month of the year. I never know whether to be happy or sad. Summer still lingers, but Autumn is in the air. Our gardens are still green but there are touches of gold everywhere. At Kruse the gardens are still blooming gloriously as you may have seen at the Ice Cream Social. Still, there is that overall feeling of a declining summer holding its breath as Autumn creeps in. I love the crispness of a September day, but I hate watching August’s grandeur fade away.

During our most recent workday at Kruse, we weeded and deadheaded, hoping to hang on to that last bit of blossom, but spent the break talking about what we would be doing next year, already transplanting and dividing in preparation. I will miss our “group gardening” in the coming months, but I must admit that the chance to step back and take it easy sounds very enticing indeed about now.

“Try to remember a kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow.”