Eight gardens featured in Crystal Lake, Lake in the Hills

Posted June 29, 2017 11:00 pm

Submitted by McHenry County College

A calm, Oriental style with a large koi pond highlights this Crystal Lake garden at the McHenry County Master Gardeners' annual garden walk Saturday. Courtesy of McHenry County Master Gardeners

Explore meticulously kept gardens of bungalows, nestled in the Crystal Lake Public Library neighborhood, view an Oriental garden that highlights a koi pond and other gardens filled with rows of vegetables or fruit trees as part of the McHenry County Master Gardeners' annual garden walk from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Eight gardens are included in the tour that starts at the McHenry County College demonstration garden and continues through Crystal Lake and at one garden in Lake in the Hills.

Visitors can walk past arbors, window boxes, trellises and perennials at homes that evoke local history. One Crystal Lake garden features three small ponds, each loaded with frogs, along with perennial and annual flower beds designed to attract birds, bees and butterflies.

Another Crystal Lake garden includes more than 12,000 perennials. A third Crystal Lake garden features a calm Oriental style with a Japanese lilac, a weeping cherry, a weeping redbud, and large statues and lanterns punctuating the perennial beds.

The Lake in the Hills garden includes a formal, four-square styled garden, along with a hidden fairy garden, a patch of Illinois native prairie and a small water garden featuring goldfish and the gurgle of running water.

All gardens will have master gardeners on-site to answer questions as well as offer educational materials highlighting each garden's assets.

The demonstration garden at MCC includes plots of colorful annuals and vegetables grown from seed by volunteers in the college greenhouse; themed arrangements, cool shadowy corners full of shade-loving specimens, plus opportunities for sensory exploration for scents, textures, colors and sounds. In addition, quiet hidden benches and nooks provide a place for reflection and contemplation.

The self-guided garden walk takes place rain or shine. Tickets are $17 and available at the demonstration garden at parking lot C.

For information, call (815) 479-7570, visit mchenry.edu/gardenwalk or email conferencecenter@mchenry.edu.

This Crystal Lake garden includes an array of plants showcasing both diversity and quantity, including 12,000 perennials and is one of seven residential gardens featured at the McHenry County Master Gardeners' garden walk. Courtesy of McHenry County Master Gardeners

A formal four-square styled garden in the front yard of a Lake in the Hills home features annuals, perennials and conifers. It will be a stop on the garden walk Saturday. Courtesy of McHenry County Master Gardeners

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