The Wheaton Garden Club was joined by members of the Wheaton City Council and representatives from the Wheaton Park District on October 23, 2025 to dedicate Wheaton Garden Club’s sculpture honoring our 100 years of service to the community. The bronze sculpture, designed as a wheelbarrow planter with bird and butterfly adornments, is located at the southeast corner of Memorial Park.
The dedication included Mayor Phil Seuss and others thanking and congratulating Wheaton Garden Club for their 100 years of service to the community. Everyone enjoyed coffee, tea and lovely personalized Wheaton Garden Club cookies at the Mary Lubko Center before viewing the sculpture.
Our Celebration was held at Chicago Golf Club on April 10, 2025. 30 members attended as well as 3 members from Garden Clubs of Illinois.
Our founders, Mrs. Will Lyford (Mary McComas), Mrs. Robert McCormick (Amy Irwin), Mrs. Joy Morton (Margaret Gray), and Mrs. George Plamondon (Laura Hodge) were highlighted as well as the many community projects the club has been involved in over the years.
The menu included cream of butternut squash soup, grilled chicken or shrimp, mixed greens salad with artichoke hearts, grilled asparagus, dried apricots, roasted red peppers and grape tomatoes, followed by celebration cake with vanilla ice cream.
Our president, Gail, thanked the members of the Anniversary committee for all their efforts in making the afternoon a success. She welcomed our guests from Garden Clubs of Illinois, Diane Greenawalt, President, Linda Groble, Director of District II, and Walter Groble, Treasurer.
INSTALLATION OF NEW OFFICERS
Our new officers, Co-First Vice President Programs, Treasurer, Corresponding Secretary and 4th Vice President Website Adminstrator, were installed by past President, Jane Fleming.
HISTORY OF THE WHEATON GARDEN CLUB PRESENTATION
Jane Fleming gave a wonderful Power Point slide presentation on the history of the garden club, including many interesting facts about the founders and the City of Wheaton.
Caroline Jacobsen, who has been a member of the Wheaton Garden Club since 1973, added her memories of the club’s activities over the past 50 years, including many funny anecdotes.
Purple and pearls were the theme of the day, as well as fashions from the 1920’s.
We look forward to many more years continuing our tradition of stimulating interest in gardening, conservation, and civic beautification.
On April 17, 2025 six garden club members participated in the spring cleanup of our pollinator garden at Seven Gables Park in Wheaton. Last year’s foliage was removed to reveal blooming spring daffodils and new growth of the perennials.
Seven of our members enjoyed a delightful afternoon on March 21, 2025 at the District II Spring Meeting and Luncheon held at Arrowhead Golf Club in Wheaton. The theme was Blooming Together and the speaker was Debra Miller.
Please note that plant pick-up is one day only. If you cannot pick-up your plants on that day, please arrange for someone else to pick them up for you. The Wheaton Garden Club cannot be responsible for the condition of plants not picked up on May 17th.
What’s New for 2025:
Begonia “Black Hole” – A Rex Begonia with dramatic dark centered leaves. (4.5″ pot)
Tropical Canna Lily “Gold Leopard” – A green leaf variety whose flowers have orange spots on a gold background.
3 new Dahlias
“Apricot Glow” from the City Lights series. (4.5″ pot)
“Golden Yellow” and “Passion Fruit” from the Venti series. (6″ pots, available in our Specialty Offerings category)
Helianthus “Saturn” – Flowers have an orange ring around the dark center.
2 new Petunias (4.5″pots) –
“Indian Summer” – A trailing petunia with blooms that open orange and mature to salmon pink.
“Pink Diamond” – A double petunia with large pink flowers, whose petals are edged in white.
A new color Portulaca “Mango” – This is available in both 4.5″ pots and hanging baskets.
Note:
Pick-up is one day only, Saturday, May 17th. If you cannot pick-up your plants on that day, please arrange for someone else to pick them up for you. The Wheaton Garden Club cannot be responsible for the condition of plants not picked up on May 17th.
Since we are required to order full cases of each item, we have reduced the plants that we are offering to exclude items for which there were very few purchases last year.
Occasionally, our grower substitutes items for those that were ordered. If your order is affected by this, we will give you the option of accepting the substitution or removing the unavailable item from your order.
If a plant is a “Proven Winners” selection, we have noted that in the description of the plant. The Proven Winners website is especially helpful for more information about their plants. This information includes reviews, awards, and recipes for combinations with other plants.
We recommend the Ball Seed website for additional information about plants that are not “Proven Winners”.
Wheaton Garden Club is very pleased to announce its Philanthropy recipients for 2025.
A financial donation was made to We Grow Dreams to go towards roofing repairs. We Grow Dreams is a nursery and greenhouse in West Chicago, which has been providing job training and employment to young adults with disabilities for over seventeen years. Photo: left to right: Gail Bettcher from We Grow Dreams with members of the Philanthropy Committee – Mary Pat, Nancy and Marty.
A financial donation was also given to Sustain DuPage for their programs including a lending library for tools, a protector native seed program and garden restoration programs. Sustain DuPage is a community of organizers working toward the common aim of growing sustainability in DuPage County. Photo: Lindsay Zimmerman, Garden Organizer with David Bravo and Anton Dimov of Sustain DuPage.
Our members did a wonderful job planting up the containers at the Metropolitan Family Services facility on Willow in downtown Wheaton. They certainly add a cheerful holiday touch!
The Wheaton Garden Club members welcomed visitors to our Pollinator Garden Open House at Seven Gables Park on Saturday June 22, 2024. Visitors were able to see many different types of flowers that are beneficial to our local pollinators: birds, bees and butterflies. Children enjoyed coloring pictures of butterflies and bees. Free milkweed plants for Monarch butterflies were given away. We anticipate this will be an annual event.
