MAY / JUNE 2003

How does the gardening year begin? Let me count the ways.

For starters, there’s the Flower and Garden Show, which runs for nine days in mid-March.

Talk about star-studded. This year’s event twinkled and sparkled with the talents of several local garden and floral designers (Craig Bergmann, Douglas Hoerr, Christy Webber, Bill Heffernan), two Chelsea-seasoned Brits (Tim Redmond and Andrew McIndoe), and the creative team of Ralph Lauren, which came from New York to create the Show’s centerpiece, a gift from the Mayor’s Host Committee of the Flower Show.

Local garden centers, nurseries and landscape contractors also created or installed stunning gardens (Sid’s, Foxwillow Pines, Scott Byron, James Martin). And there were exciting contributions from public institutions like the Chicago Botanic Garden, University of Illinois Extension, and the Chicago Park District. It was a very good show.
In fact, the buzz on the floor was that Chicago now rivals (dare we say it?) Philadelphia, long regarded as the site of the top flower show in the country. Considering that Philadelphia has been in this business since 1829, while Chicago’s re-incarnation of the “old” McCormick Place show dates only to 1995, this is heady stuff.

The Flower Show closes, the crocus open—another seasonal landmark.

In a normal year, the last week of March invariably produces a brilliant, balmy Saturday morning when the masses of purple, white and yellow right in front of my house are so glorious that it would be a sin against nature not to sit on the front steps for an hour or so, simply basking and taking it all in. Surely neighbors passing on their way to and from the supermarket consider me a sloth, but so be it. Crocus and the word “evanescent” are practically synonyms.
Then comes May—what I consider the “real” beginning of the gardening year—and I realize that if my favorite plant were crocus, the gardening year would have already peaked. Such a curious little notion and always a little sad.
But it’s May, so I quickly toss off any intimations of mortality, floral or otherwise, and set my mind on the business at hand, which is digging, dividing, planting, transplanting, watching the buds unfolding on the rose canes, and the resurgence of Life. It’s time to run out to garden centers and return laden with treasures—the tried and true as well as some newbies.

This issue of Chicagoland Gardening is intentionally plant-heavy to help you in your quest. Do you like annuals? Our cover story features unusual new annuals that are now available locally. Are you a vegetable grower? Read about what you can grow for the kitchen that’s “beyond beans.” For pond gardeners, we have a story on five types of water iris. For houseplant growers, we investigate clivia. For wildflower lovers, there’s trillium. Add on our stories about beautiful gardens, bluebirds, and an expose of some popular plant “myths,” and we think we’ve covered all the bases.
This is our time for fun in the sun. Let the games begin.