SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 1997

Turning our sights to a cover story on autumn seemed like a natural topic-good photography should be available to show you some stunning landscapes. What we lucked into was a tie to the 75th anniversary of the Morton Arboretum in Lisle. "The Arb," as it's known in certain circles, should be on any list of places to visit each year in the Chicagoland area and fall color is a sure drawing card.

If you haven't visited for awhile, put it on a list of must things to do. Studies of where visitors come from reveal an inordinate percentage from a 7-mile radius around the Arboretum. And don't overlook or forget the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe-although not as old or steeped in tree history, the garden offers a great diversity of trees as Managing Editor Carolyn Ulrich tells us in a review of a new book on page 42.

Carolyn also contacted several well-known tree experts for their impressions of autumn and those are contained in an artful layout that uses a photo from Ray Kammer, president of the Arboretum's Nature Study and Camera Club. Ray is one of the many volunteers who provide not only extra hands but business expertise to the staff. He's even had several good ideas for us at the magazine.

We have also had the help of Doris Taylor and Carol Doty in pulling together our report. Doris, plant information specialist, gave us the list of trees and shrubs that give best fall color and Carol, exhibition and interpretation specialist, wrote a history of how the arboretum came into being. Incidentally, Carol stumbled into a new life adventure recently when she decided to run for the Downers Grove Park District board, tried to pull out of the election only to find that her name would appear on the ballot anyway. You can guess the rest of the story-she won the seat. In her first few months on the job, she has had to wrestle with a great debate in our community-whether Good Samaritan Hospital should be allowed to build a medical building near the park district's wetlands restoration project in Lyman Woods. The park district board decided to file suit to try to stop the hospital's plans.

Back in the garden, we seem to be able to stir up a degree of controversy each issue and perhaps that should be our role-to facilitate debate on both sides of a given issue. As Carolyn Ulrich wondered in a recent communique, "Are we a forum for a variety of opinions or are we editorially confused?"

Some examples: In the July/August issue, Carolyn wrote about attracting wildlife to the garden. In this issue, our guest editorialist, Carol Gillis of Knupper's Nursery in Palatine, says flatly that we should not coddle wildlife by feeding them all the time. Also in this issue, we have Bret Rappaport writing about native landscaping that would have us tear out our bluegrass lawns while at the same time, we turn to Extension Educator Bruce Spangenberg for a report on how to create a beautiful lawn

Confused? I would argue not. For every one of us who wants to plant a naturalistic yard there is another person who would prefer to have a landscaper come in and manicure a beautiful setting that may not contain one native plant. We should look for that balance wherever we notice ourselves advocating one position too strongly. The one area we won't compromise is gardening-believing firmly that it's a positive element in our complex society.