Excellent Gardens, Excellent Garden Advice
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(October 13, 2019) This blog is going to be brief. I’m exhausted from acknowledging excellent gardens and excellent gardeners. Don’t get me wrong. I love good gardens and good gardeners. It’s just that today we presented the 2019 Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards (CEGA). When I say “we,” I mean Peggy and Kathleen and Illinois Extension: Cook County and a bunch of other groups.
Today was the culmination of months of work, not just for CEGA, but for the people who entered our competition. Nearly 200 people packed the Austin Town Hall Auditorium on the west side of Chicago, where we gave out nearly one hundred awards. The recipients were for backyard gardens, community gardens, rooftop gardens, parkway gardens–you name it, we saw it. You can find the complete list of recipients here.
In all, the CEGA Committee gave out 68 awards and a bunch of honorable mentions. Commissioner Kimberly Neely du Buclet of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) said a few words before the ceremony. She helped to donate five rain barrels that we gave out at random to entrants. Christine Nye, who recently retired as horticulture manager at the Shedd Aquarium, gave the keynote address. You might recall that she was on last week’s show.
Unless you’re there, it’s almost impossible to explain how uplifting this award ceremony is. Over three years, CEGA has handed out more than 150 awards to gardeners young and old across the entire City of Chicago. This year, the organization received its 501(c)(3) designation, which means you can make a contribution and get a tax write off. So go write that check.
Seriously, a ton of volunteer work has gone into the organization over those three years. However, we’re pleased to say that Chicago once again has a citywide gardening awards program. You can find a list of the groups that have made CEGA possible here. If you’re interested in making a contribution towards the 2020 awards, send an email to chicagogardeningawards@gmail.com.
Meanwhile, back to excellent gardens. We have a couple of the 2019 winners on today’s show. The Gardens at Clos Ravenswood are in Andersonville in the 47th Ward. Not only did they receive an award for their garden, we gave them a special award, as well–the “Over-the-Top” award. You’ll understand why when you read the description.
To quote our judge: “WOW! WOW! WOW! From the moment you enter this space, your amazement begins. Starting at floor level in an open air entryway, up a staircase to the first level herbaceous and rosaceous area for dining, then up and over via a ladder to the main roof housing an urban farm, you are in awe by the volume, color and smells exhibiting the total power of container gardening. Muscat grapes; peach, cherry and plum fruit trees; veggies abound in earth boxes, smart pots, and wine box containers. Honeybees have the ideal home to feast in and no reason to leave.” This is rooftop gardening taken to another level…so to speak.
Torrence O’Haire and Drew Davis created this masterpiece, and they join us in studio. Another gardening duo also drops by–Joy Miller and Tom Mitchell. Their garden is called Wolfgang’s Joy House, and it’s located in the Logan Square, 32nd Ward. (They live on Mozart Avenue, hence the name.) Here’s a description of their plot of paradise.
Joy Miller describes her garden she tends with her tenant Tom Mitchell as “artistic eclectic” and she ain’t kidding. It is a kaleidoscope of annuals, perennials, vegetables, small trees and vines, punctuated by her own stained glass art as well as found pieces like a couple of elegant vintage street lamps. Her two compost bins provide amendments for her soil, and she takes the herbs grown in pots weekly to Dos Urban Cantina on Armitage Avenue. The finishing touch is the 1200 gallon koi pond tucked between hers and a neighbor’s garage, which she dug herself with coal shovel as a means of getting through a life crisis years ago. (Oh, yeah, Tom has a fully functional model railroad in the basement, complete with miniature buildings, landscapes, and even fake sky.)
So that’s the excellent gardens part of the program. The excellent gardening advice part of the show is in the person of the wonderful Melinda Myers, who drops by in the first hour. Our show is always special when Melinda is around. She last joined us in July of this year to talk summer gardening. Well, we just got our first blast of cold autumn air, which opens up an entirely different set of problems.
By the way, if you don’t already know, Melinda is about the most accomplished garden communicator you’ll ever find. To begin, she’s in the Hall of Fame of GWA: The Association for Garden Communicators. So there’s that. But wait, there’s more!
Melinda hosts the nationally-syndicated Melinda’s Garden Moment program, airing on more than 120 TV and radio stations throughout the United States. She also hosts the internationally distributed Great Courses “How to Grow Anything” DVD series That includes the latest Food Gardening for Everyone DVD set.
She’s a longtime columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine. She writes the twice monthly “Gardeners’ Questions” newspaper column. Myers used to write a regular column for Chicagoland Gardening and Wisconsin Gardening magazines. The problem is that those two magazines no longer exist. That’s something we’ll talk about today. She has written more than 20 gardening books, including Can’t Miss Small Space Gardening and the Midwest Gardener’s Handbook.
Whew. I’m exhausted. Let’s get started.