Club ofers peek into extraordinary gardens
There's often a spirit of competitiveness among gardeners, tempered by a sense of admiration for each other's landscaping successes.
It's this spirit that draws members of the Men's Garden Club of Villa Park together and draws the public to the club's annual Garden Walk, where several impressive gardens are available for close inspection.
The 2015 Garden Walk is set for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, July 19. "Walkers," who actually will drive to eight sites, will visit four gardens in Villa Park and one each in Elmhurst, Oak Brook, Lombard and Bensenville.
There's no fee to participate, though the club accepts donations to defray costs.
Bob Wendorff's Villa Park garden is on the tour.
"I'm an advanced gardening nut," said Wendorff, a retired Bensenville public school teacher and a member of the club for the past three years.
Wendorff said the club meets monthly in Villa Park and has about 80 members who hold competitions, listen to lectures from gardening experts and participate in special events such as plant sales and picnics.
The club's name is a bit of a misnomer, he said.
"It's got as many women, or more women, as men," he said.
Wendorff's garden has been featured in Chicagoland Gardening and Small Gardens magazine pieces.
"This year the theme of my garden is all pinks and reds. I grow a lot of perennial plants," he said, adding that he's partial to hostas, a shade leaf plant that grows in hundreds of varieties. "This is the year for hostas because it's rained so much."
He also grows day lilies, purple shamrocks, Japanese Pagoda dogwoods, Chinese lentigo trees, specialty blue spruce, miniature evergreens, grasses and vegetables.
He incorporates the architecture of his house and his two-story garage into the mix, resulting in an effect he calls "Midwest American."
It's the result of an aesthetic that Wendorff began cultivating as a child, when he worked in his parents' garden. And it's a legacy he's passed to his son, who collects hosta varieties.
Larry Bellamy's Oak Brook garden, meanwhile, landed in the pages of Better Homes and Gardens last year and got write-ups and photo spreads in the same magazines that profiled Wendorff's work.
His half-acre lot contains a mosaic of five gardens that includes an Italian garden, complete with grapevines, statues, columns and fountains. There's also a French bistro café garden and a Japanese garden.
Bellamy, a retired firefighter, said the Japanese garden this year will feature flower arranging and calligraphy demonstrations and a musical performance from 10 to 11 a.m. on the day of the walk.
A garden club member, Bellamy said he was introduced to gardening while working as a part-time landscaper during his fire service career.
"I'm always doing something new and different. I do a lot of work with succulents, succulents in raised beds," he said.
Bellamy said the club expects 300 to 400 people to participate in this year's walk.
Maps and programs will be available online and at the club's sponsors' locations.
"You're being creative but it also is what nature is doing," Wendorff said by way of explaining his fascination with growing and cultivating. "It's nice to make something nice, to sit back and look at. My goal is to get more people interested in gardening."
If you go
What: 2015 Garden Walk
Who: Men's Garden Club of Villa Park
When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, July 19
Cost: Free; donations accepted
Info: www.homegardening.org