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homerhorizon.com life & arts
the Homer Horizon | June 21, 2018 | 17
Woman’s Club’s first garden walk stops at six different yards
Prairie, pollinator,
vegetable, rock,
shade and fairy
spaces highlighted
Mary Compton
Freelance Reporter
Homer Glen Junior Woman’s Club members (left to right) Kathy Young, Lauren Tetrick,
Ann Morrow and Danielle Montour, all of Homer Glen, stand in the prairie garden Saturday,
June, 16, outside of Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen. The location
was one of six visited by the group’s first garden walk in the community. Photos by Mary
Compton/22nd Century Media
From saving the bees
to walking through a fairy
wonderland, the Homer
Glen Junior Woman’s Club
first garden walk was a success.
The heat did not keep
away visitors to six different
gardens throughout Homer
Glen. The garden walk, titled
Every Garden has a Story to
Tell, featured prairie, pollinator,
vegetable, rock, shade
and fairy gardens.
Danielle Montour, of
Homer Glen, spoke about
hosting the unique event,
which was meant to show
attendees how fellow every
day gardeners tend to their
yards.
“[The Woman’s Club]
never hosted a garden walk
before” Montour said. “The
Conservation Committee
planned and organized this
event. Most of the members
worked together for this.”
One of the gardens on the
tour was the pollinator garden
owned by Jim and Fran
Perveiler.
“What we try and do in
our backyard is to attract a
variety of birds, bees, butterflies
and other critters,”
Fran said. “The plants I have
picked serve that purpose.
Last year, we started a milkweed
garden. The milkweed
is the only plant that the
monarch butterfly will lay its
eggs on.”
Besides attracting monarchs,
which are close to being
endangered, according to
Fran, she and Jim also love
the variety of birds they see.
They have several birdfeeders
and said the birds always
come the first week of May,
including Baltimore orioles,
and that they eat grape jelly.
There are also the hummingbirds
and other Midwest
birds. They keep bee
balm and cornflowers to attract
the bees, while the birds
love purple coneflowers and
sunflowers, they said.
“I’m passionate about
gardening,” Fran said. “It’s
been a hobby since I was a
teenager. It’s something that
gives me great pleasure, as
well as being a creative outlet.”
Touring the gardens on the
walk was the Quintana family,
of Homer Glen. Lorenzo
Quintana talked about his
passion for gardening.
“You don’t get too many
gardeners who do detail gardening,”
Lorenzo said. “We
do. This garden walk gave us
ideas on what to do.
“We’ve walked all six
gardens. Our favorite so far
was the fairy garden. It was
breathtaking.”
Lorenzo’s wife, Lisa, explained
the love for gardening
in the family.
“Anything that has to do
with plants, we get involved
as a family in gardening,”
she said. “In the fairy garden,
they took advantage
where the sump pump ran
through, and it was like a
wetlands. Instead of fighting
against it, they built a garden
around it to make it beautiful.”
Lisa is also a horticulturist
at Brookfield Zoo. She mentioned
how important plants
are to the animals.
Lorenzo and Lisa’s opinion
was shared by the majority,
as the most popular spot
of the day was the fairy garden
owned by Michael and
Nancy Eleder. It was the talk
of the garden walk.
“When we moved here, it
was all clay,” Nancy said.
“My mom was always interested
in fairies and had
them in the house; I kind of
moved the fairies from inside
to outside. I increased
the numbers throughout
the years. To me, each part
of the garden has its own
unique feature.”
Nancy doesn’t garden
alone, as her husband joins
in doing the work.
“The soil is the key,” Michael
said. “We took one
bed at a time. We got the soil
properly prepared before we
did anything. We wanted to
have the house and the yard
be on the edge of a woodland.
We planted almost
every tree on our property.
The front of our yard looks
like a subdivision with a few
flowers, and then you hit the
back.
“… It’s so peaceful back
here.”
For the public, there is one
garden open to all every day
of the year. It’s the prairie
garden located at Annunciation
Byzantine Catholic
Church on 14610 S. Will
Cook Road in Homer Glen.
The artist for both inside and
outside of the church is the
Rev. Thomas Loya.
Michael and Nancy Eleder, of Homer Glen, have a garden
filled with fairies both big and small, along with miniature
furniture and structures for them that they shared for the
garden walk.
“This is the first time
we’ve had a garden walk
here,” Loya said. “The
grounds are reflective of the
same spirituality that you
see inside the church. Basically,
it’s making God’s
glory manifested in nature.
God put these plants and
ecosystem in this part of
the world. We designed our
property to be in that same
order. It serves the community
because it helped solve
a water problem that they
had. It connected the community,
because people can
come through our church
grounds, walk the paths and
meditate.”
Loya said his vision for
Annunciation is that of a
church in a natural environment.
“I was inspired by Homer
Glen’s green visioning,”
Loya explained further.
“Conservation Design designed
it, I help maintain
and develop it. My favorite
part was turning an abandoned
detention area into a
community nature park. Sitting
in these gardens put me
in touch with God. It gives
you peace. There is nothing
like it.
“I highly recommend
people to come out here and
walk the gardens, walk the
paths. You’ll see all kinds of
wildlife, the ecosystems, the
monarch butterflies being
preserved. There is always
some activity. It’s beautiful
year-round, even with
the snow and the frost. It’s
inspiring. This prairie garden
has youth, goodness and
beauty.”