Suburban garden walks offer chance to get inspired

From an estate that's part of Barrington Hills' legendary Hill 'N Dale Farm to a garden that a landscape architect built around her historic Batavia home and the atypical plants filling a Lisle yard, garden walks give you a chance to see it all.

June is a big month for suburban garden walks, but you will find some in July and even August.

Here is a sampling of what's going on in upcoming garden walks.

• Barrington Country Garden & Antique Faire; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., June 19 and 20; $40 through June 14, then $50, $75 for early shopping; benefits Hands of Hope, which has raised $25 million to help women and children in Africa. Call (847) 381-7367 or visit www.handsofhopeonline.org.

Hill 'N Dale Farm in Barrington Hills is famous for its thoroughbred horses, and visitors will be able to get a glimpse of some of them as they ride among the white fences to the featured estate, one of several on the property.

The rambling, aged-looking house began in the 1870s as a fieldstone barn, and the stucco silo that now holds the library was added in the 1940s. Visitors will walk through an arch connecting the old wing with the pump house, which is also original. The rustic 1980s barn wood additions fit in well, with ivy and vines adding to the aged appearance.

The home wraps around a front courtyard garden with day lilies, zinnias, begonias, impatiens and salvia. Grooved pavers forming the path might have come from a railroad crossing.

Huge weeping willows bend over the spring-fed pond, and they seem as ancient as the oaks, elms, pines and blue spruces that also stand guard around the landscape. Other highlights of the pond are small waterfalls and a deck with a gazebo.

Love birds, parakeets and doves greet visitors from an aviary near the swimming pool, which is behind the house and its attached greenhouse and a bit of a climb up flagstone steps. Its features include a stone grotto with a waterfall.

As usual, the fair features three Barrington Hills estates. The second, more formal one slopes down to Flint Creek from a very large rear patio. Highlights here include a three-tier fountain, large graceful planters and an arbor separating the garden from the tennis courts.

Most of the fair's activities, including sales and workshops, are at the third estate, which also shows several gardens.

• Primroses to Prairie, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 20; $12.50 in advance at office of the Batavia Park District, 327 W. Wilson; $15 at the door, Government Center, 1000 N. Island Ave.; Batavia Plain Dirt Gardeners; (630) 879-0638 or e-mail melissa.hyams@att.net.

Kristina Abbott credits the geometry of her garden with creating its charm. And the landscape architect with Thornapple Landscapes in Geneva knows what she's talking about.

The garden she and her husband, Robert Ryba, have worked on for 17 years wraps around the 1850s home where Abbott believes inhabitants helped slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad. The evidence in the house built for Sackett Booth, a Batavia businessman, is a defunct tunnel that stretched to two adjacent houses.

"One problem with a corner house is you don't have a back yard," said Abbott. Visitors won't believe that because Abbott and Ryba enjoy a private area that includes outdoor "rooms" - complete with sitting area, table for dining and grill for cooking.

And the color scheme - blue, white and touches of coral - makes an important contribution to the picture created by the geometry and balance.

Abbott's blues include bachelor buttons, plumbago, salvia, Johnson's Blue geraniums, and brunnera. Coral lilies and white and warm pink roses should bloom during the walk.

One fun duty for history buffs is checking how many different names of brick companies they can find on pavers in the yard, including Flint, Purington, Poston and Metropolitan.

And Abbott has tucked 13 statues of rabbits in the garden, although she's not as fond of real ones who try to turn her work into salad.

While the bones or structure of the landscaping are important to landscape architects, Abbott had never really gardened until the couple bought this house.

"I totally believe in structure," she said, pointing out the garden's balance with its rectangular patio where pavers cross in the center and the hedge framing it almost defines a circle.

"Once the structure is in all the plants can do whatever they want as long as I control the structure. I want people to move through this garden in a certain way.

"I never realized how much I loved gardening," she said.

• Garden Gait, four private gardens; 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., June 14; Tickets $15 at local businesses, and at Lisle Station Park, 921 School St., the day of the event; Lisle Woman's Club; (630) 561-3144 or lislewomansclub.org.

All four gardeners featured on this walk do their own work-and quite a bit of that.

At a raised ranch, the homeowner combines trends such as native plants with growing vegetables in containers.

"I call my garden collections of one," she said. "You're supposed to buy plants in threes and fives, but I can't afford that."

The front yard features native trees and shrubs including a blue beech, spice bushes, fringe trees and a smooth, native hydrangea.

Visitors who wander to other areas will see fallopia japonica, which spreads its white flowers in mid June and takes over the shade garden. The long list of plants around the house includes pink and yellow shrub roses, bachelor buttons, day lilies, barrenwort, sweet woodruff and corydalis.