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May 12, 2006
BY LESLIE BALDACCI Staff Reporter
Despite
a gale warning outside, summer was in full bloom Thursday -- inside the white
tents on Grant Park's Butler Field. Workers put the finishing touches on the
city's first Garden in a City show, which kicks off with a gala tonight and
opens to the public at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Billed as the nation's first urban garden show, it showcases 40 landscape scenarios for city lots against backdrops of classic Chicago architecture. The designs are as diverse and unique as Chicago's neighborhoods, ranging from functional to funky and elegant to whimsical.
Landscape architects imported some out-of-town flavor, creating a New Orleans courtyard on a Chicago-size lot and an Asian-influenced rooftop garden, with bamboo trees and a Buddha. The show features nearly 100 container gardens for decks, porches and balconies.
Green means go
Landscaper Christy Webber incorporated found objects such as plastic piping, bottles, street signs and license plates into her artsy, edgy garden plan for a front and back yard and adjacent parkway. Webber developed the style she calls "West Side Revived" while living and building her business at Lake and Western over the past 17 years.
"It's gritty, urban," she said. A peony bush sprays from a metal trash barrel. Look twice at the sculptural silver planter and realize it's a street light.
Every garden has an environmental component -- recycled materials, ways to capture rainwater, the economy of using every last inch of green space with a roof garden. One backyard has a doghouse with a "woof garden."
"It's done in a way that is not crunchy granola and Birkenstocks, but beautiful," said Grace Rappe of Douglas Hoerr Landscape Architecture.
Mayor Daley and his wife, Maggie, walked through the show on Wednesday night, before he left for China. The mayor, the only honorary member of the Illinois Nurserymen's Association in its 82-year history, was reportedly delighted with the result. Last December, he asked landscapers to participate in the show with six months' notice--half the time usually devoted to planning such an event and falling at their busiest time of the year.
No time to get the blues
"We told our members to suck it up. It's good PR," said Dave Bender, executive director of the Illinois Nurserymen's Association.
"Everybody cooperated," Webber said. "We're grateful to the mayor. We should be, he's so into this greening movement."
Garden in a City continues through May 21, giving the Chicago Park District 18 days to repair Butler Field for the Chicago Blues Festival, the largest of the city's summer music fests with an estimated attendance of 750,000.
"It's taken a beating," said Laura Foxgrover, the park district's director of development.
Foxgrover said show organizers asked participating landscapers for ideas on how to repair muddy areas in time for summer events.
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