About seven years ago, Tim Johnson was at The Infant Welfare Society at 1931 N. Halsted St., when he noticed the five garden plots in front of the building.
“These gardens had been worked on sporadically, so they were in fair to poor condition,” he recalls. “And I just thought someone ought to be working on these gardens. Then I thought that I would take the job on.”
The timing was right. Johnson recently had completed a four-year term as president of the organization and was looking for a new challenge.
“Former presidents are in sort of an awkward position, in that you want to stay involved but you don’t want to get in the way of other people,” says Johnson, who has volunteered with the society since 1982. “So I was looking for a niche or two that I could work in, and the garden was perfect.”
Gardening also had been a lifelong avocation of his–one that, as a 12th-floor resident of a Lincoln Park high-rise, he hadn’t had much practice at in recent years.
Over the last seven years, with the help of fellow society volunteers and others, Johnson, now 45, slowly has transformed the green space around the society’s building into beautiful, blossoming gardens.
“It started small, with just a little weeding and cleanup of the garden plots, and the planting of bulbs in the fall,” he says.
“Then, about five years ago, there was a major opportunity for us when building was renovated.
“We expanded our parking lot around to the back and as part of the plan, we added a substantial amount of gardens in back of the building, more than doubling the size of our total garden space.”
He adds: “We went a little fancier in the back, as we had a little money through a memorial fund for Jim O’Leary, whose wife Denise O’Leary had been involved with the auxiliary of the society for many years.”
When the back gardens were first established, Johnson and the society were assisted by landscape architect Maria Smithburg, who designed the space.
“We incorporated about five new trees, dozens of new shrubs and then perennial planting throughout,” he says.
“And then we supplemented it with bulbs–daffodils, tulips and hyacinths–and annuals such as impatiens and perennials such as peonies.”
Since then, he and his fellow volunteers “have spruced up the back garden quite a bit,” he says.
“We have added some nice roses in there, and I’m particularly proud of the morning glories that we had last year, which did very well and grew all over our fences.
“It’s quite an eclectic mix.”
Now, he estimates, there are about 30 different perennials and dozens of different annuals in about 3,000 square feet of garden space in 10 plots.
Most of Johnson’s work on the gardens takes place spring through fall. He works on them mostly on weekends.
“I’ll start out there in the spring, cleaning up, weeding, pruning, trimming and planting,” he says. “Then I’ll go to the nursery supply store, buy things that look good and then go figure out where to put them.
“I’ll do a spring planting towrds the end of May with a group of volunteers, and we’ll put in some annuals and a few perennials where we have a few holes.”
Summer is spent maintaining and sprucing up the garden, and in the fall, he and other volunteers prepare the plots for the following spring.
“We typically have three to four major plantings during the year,” he says, “including a big fall planting when we put in a lot of bulbs.”
But Johnson is not idle during the winter: He spends time preparing for the planting season.
“Every winter, I’m always growing things indoors on a kitchen shelf until about spring when my wife says, `Get those things out of here,’ ” he says with a smile. “That’s when I take them out to the gardens.
“This past spring I grew some pineapples–just for fun–as well as some lilies and begonias that I brought in out of the garden last fall.”
There is a very tangible reward to Johnson’s volunteer gardening.
“I like beautifying a space and making things grow,” he says. “I like working with the soil and accomplishing something. It’s one of my hobbies and I do find it relaxing, although I use different muscles gardening. I was sore from just bending and digging the other day.”
The gardens “present the society to the neighborhood,” Johnson says.
“That’s important, as we try to put our best foot forward, saying we care not just about our patients but about the community. It also presents us to our patients and tells that we care about them and the environment for which they come to for services. It’s also important for our staff, who eat lunch over at the picnic tables by the gardens.
“So it’s a very integral component of what we do at the society and sort of sets our mindset.”
Johnson’s contribution to the garden adds much to the society, executive director Frances Ginther says.
“The gardens are a way for us to fit into the neighborhood,” Ginther says. “They add a lot to our environment here and make a difference to people even passing by.
“And the gardens are also a tribute to Tim’s caring and thoughtfulness. He is typical of the people who contribute to us, in that he adds so much to our mission.
“Our volunteers are our lifeblood. We could not do what we do without them.”
Thanks to volunteers such as Johnson, the society serves more than 11,000 indigent Chicago children and their mothers each year, Ginther says. Services include a pediatric medical clinic, health education, instruction in prenatal and child health care, and home counseling for emotionally troubled youth and their families.
Johnson, who is an investment adviser with Bard Associates Inc. in Chicago, also serves on the society’s investment committee.
He has been the society’s treasurer and the chairman of its development and finance committees.
A native of Barrington, he attended the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, graduating in 1969. He graduated from Princeton University in New Jersey in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, and from Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., in 1975 with a master’s degree in business administration.
He lives in Lincoln Park with his wife, Valerie Wiley, a marketing research consultant, and their daughter, Lexie, 7.
Gardening is something that goes back to Johnson’s childhood. “My father did a lot of gardening, and I helped him a lot,” he says. “It was something I grew up with.”
He also tends a garden at the LaSalle Language Academy, 1734 N. Orleans Ave., where Lexie attends school. The space was a pile of rubble before the school turned it into a garden two years ago.
This occurred when Lexie began going there, and he was one of the first people to help manage it.
Lexie occasionally helps her father with the school garden and those at The Infant Welfare Society.
“It’s wonderful to see her involved,” Johnson says, “but, of course, she likes to seed but not weed.”
Johnson notes that he will be able to see the fruits of his labor in the gardens for years to come.
“I will be able to look at the garden 20 years from now and enjoy some of what we’re doing today,” he says. “That feels good.”
He adds, “Gardening is a nice activity, in that one can lose oneself in it. It’s easy to go to work and look up two hours later and not realize how fast the time has passed.
“And to make a contribution as part of that makes it really worthwhile.”
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For more information about The Infant Welfare Society of Chicago, call 312-751-8804.
