It is the sweetest, most exquisite place imaginable.
It is the secret garden, a mysterious, walled and locked haven, that many have visited through Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book. It is the 1912 tale of how a lonely, willful little girl named Mary found friends and happiness when she came to live in a great house on the Yorkshire moors.
Today, almost a century later, the magic and charm of that story still live on in the hearts of children and adults alike.
And these days, like Mary and Colin, the children charmed by “The Secret Garden,” more people are discovering that flower gardening offers a delightfully relaxing change of pace and can teach a few valuable lessons in life along the way. In the process, folks throughout the northwest suburbs have created their own secret gardens.
Indeed, tending the good earth has become one of America’s most popular pastimes.
“There is a tremendous amount of pride to be found in gardening,” says Judy Schafernak of Palatine, immediate past president of the Garden Clubs of Illinois, a not-for-profit umbrella organization representing about 8,500 gardeners and 250 garden clubs throughout the state.
“To know that you have created something that is delicious and beautiful is so wonderful,” she says. “It’s a very rewarding hobby.”
Schafernak, whose own back yard brims with herbs and edible flowers, works almost full time in her volunteer position with the statewide gardening club, sharing her extensive knowledge of the art of gardening.
“Everyone wants to get in on the secret,” says Schafernak. “Experiencing the beauty and bounty of the garden is contagious.”
Indeed, tucked away in yards throughout the northwest suburbs we found some very special garden treasures, buzzing with horticulture activity and bursting with color. Each fluctuates with the passions of its owner, yet all pay homage to the glories that reveal themselves in the garden.
Consider the McHenry County garden of Richard and Dori Buck. It’s almost impossible to imagine that only eight years ago the Buck’s superlative park-like expanse of garden at their five-acre Union home was, in Richard Buck’s words: “just a giant, blah-looking hay field.”
Today, the bountiful acres of garden at the Buck home are well worth a visit. The zinnia-lined walkway lures visitors from the roadway to the house with the first breathtaking glimpse of the secret treasures that await in the yard behind.
Beds of dahlias, gladiolias, scabias, snapdragons, wildflowers and hundreds of other flowers form beds of 125 feet to 150 feet long spread throughout the yard. Together with an arbor and its hanging baskets, adjacent to the family pool, the garden has formed a haven for Richard, a retired Cook County Forest Preserve District landscape architect, and, Dori, who helps with the gardening, plus six grown children and their seven kids who visit most weekends.
“We’ve dreamed about something like this all our lives,” says Richard, who has made gardening a joint venture since the couple married 37 years ago. Many of the fresh-cut flowers are sold by the Bucks’ daughter, Susan Williams, at her Schaumburg Poplar Creek Floral shop.
In addition to family, there’s always a group of friends and “just folks who’ve heard about the garden” traipsing through the grounds, with Richard proudly pointing to the fruits of his passion.
“Anyone is welcome,” he insists. “I’ve even thought about having a sign outside that says, `Honk, and we’ll give you a tour of the garden.’ “
Richard is the first to admit that to have a good garden, you must really work at caring for the plants. He is meticulous about the cultivation details and spends eight or more hours-“a full work day”-each day watering, weeding and clipping.
The task is year-round. He begins in the spring, planting 110 flats-thousands of seedlings-of flowers in his basement. The trick to a healthy crop: heat and moisture.
“You can’t go wrong with enough heat and moisture,” explains Richard, who immediately after the seeds germinate places the trays under flourescent lights and covers the plants with plastic to hold in the moisture.
He advises aspiring gardeners to learn the way he did-the hard way: by practicing and by “reading everything I could get my hands on about it.” He also has taken an extensive number of courses at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake.
Today, Richard, who caught the gardening bug from his grandfather, shares his expertise with others as a Master Gardener for the Illinois Cooperative Extension Service, manning phone lines to answer gardening-related questions.
“It’s exciting to share gardening with others,” he says.
That is much the same sentiment expressed by Carol Bean of Palatine. For the past 18 years, Bean has been creating an oasis of color and tranquility in the back yard of the home in which she and her husband, Bob, live.
Everywhere one finds the magic of the unexpected. The garden, stocked with the essentials of an English-style garden-fountain, fish pond, lilies, peonies, daylilies, roses, iris-covers almost the entire back yard.
Into this, Bean has woven almost a dozen distinct areas, each taking on its own character. One highlight, and special treasure for Bean, is the vast collection of roses-40 bushes-set in a formal rose garden designed by Bean.
A lifelong gardener, Bean left behind an expansive garden and greenhouse in New Jersey when she moved to Palatine with her husband and three children almost two decades ago. Almost immediately, however, she began honing her skills through classes at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe. She also quickly signed up with several local garden clubs, enjoying the shared passion for gardening and, occasionally, the joys of competition.
“I just started with a few seeds, and each year I found myself doing more and more,” says Bean, who also serves on the downtown beautification committee for the Village of Palatine. “It’s something fun to do at my leisure. I’m not terribly competitive, but if if I have something that is exceptionally pretty, I take it to a show.”
Two years ago, Bean and a neighbor, Susan Martin, plus the 30 members of their garden club-the Palanois Garden Club-devoted an entire spring and summer to sharing their gardening expertise with others. The group created, planted and still tends a breathtaking scented garden atop a 176-foot drainage wall at the Salt Creek Park District’s Twin Lakes Park in Palatine.
What makes this garden unique is that it is accessible to the handicapped. People in wheelchairs can view the flowers at eye level, and there are cards in Braille describing the plants.
“It is especially rewarding to share the beauty of gardening with others,” says Bean, whose garden club also volunteers its time to plant and tend the flowers at the Palatine Public Library.
To Bean, there is no greater escape than to step out on her patio and soak in the rich colors of her labors. “We call this our little Garden of Eden,” Bean says.
Similarly, it is a little bit of paradise that Marjorie Seymour has created. There are constant elements of surprise in Seymour’s garden in Schaumburg. Consider, for example, that in just four years, Seymour transformed a circle of black soil (the site of the previous owner’s above-ground swimming pool) into the rich bed of flowers, most of them perennials.
“When I got here, there was this big dump of black dirt just smack dab in the middle of my yard,” says Seymour, who remembers rejoicing: “Yes, perfect for the garden I’ve always wanted.”
She immediately set about the transformation. “Every year, I try new things and just keep planting more and more,” she says.
When she’s not tending the garden or chatting about it with her friends in the two garden clubs to which she belongs (the Hoffman Estates Garden Club and the Schaumburg Garden Club), Seymour’s favorite pastime is to sit at her kitchen table and savor her view of the garden and its adjacent apple tree.
“It’s something I dreamed about having all my life,” enthuses Seymour, a retired zookeeper for the Lincoln Park Zoo, who cared for the animals in the children’s zoo for 26 years. “To watch something you planted grow is just so great. Every day there are new changes and you think, `Oh, boy, look at that.’
“It’s a lot like the magic of watching and caring for the baby animals. It’s a very magical place for me.”
