From visitors to hosts to volunteers, relationships blossomed among the perennials at last weekend’s 2023 Southland Community Garden Walk, the National Council of Jewish Women’s 11th annual.
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“You’re kind of nervous to have people compare your garden with the others,” said Flossmoor resident Ted Tolish, who with his wife Cheryl hosted as one of seven stops on the walk. An eclectic mix of gardens in Steger, Crete, Olympia Fields and Homewood, ranging from formal flower beds to reclaimed native woodlands, rounded out the tour. Tolish said the hosts’ gardening abilities varied widely as well. Part of the appeal, he said, was one needn’t be a master gardener to be featured.
“Some of the other people did all of their own gardening. We’re basically ‘semi-gardeners.’ We like to garden, but there’s no way we could have gotten this ready in time,” he said, referring to the recently completed landscaping at the couples’ storied 1929 Flossmoor home. The results of that project inspired longtime friend and NCJW garden consultant Sue McCarthy to request their participation on the walk.
“Let me tell you how it happened,” said McCarthy, laughing. “We were at Flossmoor Fest last year and he was, ahem, overserved. I got him to agree, even though he kept saying, ‘It’s just not ready.’ We (gardeners) say that a lot.”
Gloria Lippert, NCJW president and force behind the walk, emphasized while hosts have a wide variety of formal training and horticultural backgrounds, a communal theme is enthusiasm.
“We call them all garden consultants,” Lippert said. She likes to encourage interconnection; a preview tour of the walk each year ends with a potluck in her spacious Flossmoor back yard.
“It’s for sponsors, docents and garden consultants, and we try to call them all out,” she said. “Usually once they have a full plate of food and can’t run.”
The walk, which Lippert co-founded 11 years ago to fill a $5,000 NCJW budget gap, this year drew 347 attendees, with all proceeds benefiting Respond Now, a Chicago Heights-based nonprofit working to address food insecurity and homelessness throughout the south suburbs, and Aunt Martha’s Health and Wellness, a nonprofit serving more than 100,000 Illinois residents.
Aside from easily exceeding that initial $5,000 goal, ancillary benefits from the walk rival fundraising, Lippert said. Especially fostering connections between participants who might not otherwise even get a chance to see the other homes on the walk.
“They loved it,” she said. “It is a gathering that people, once they come, they try not to miss it.”
Flossmoor host Michael Purcell, talked into the event this year by next-door neighbor Ted Tolish, had no regrets.
“Ted told me, ‘You have to do it; people are going to come on this walk and go to your yard, and not ours,'” he joked. “And it wasn’t a big deal, other than not knowing what to expect.”
After an afternoon enthusing over the benefits of water features?
“It’s been so fun,” he said.
It wasn’t just hosts branching out during the walk. At Ken and Janet Schuch’s lakeside garden in Steger, a decades-long labor of love that incorporated reclaimed commercial artifacts, three master gardeners took a quiet moment in a corner nook to introduce themselves and plan visits to each other’s gardens.
Tanya Fook Marshall, of Portage, Indiana, met Homewood resident Bessie Pruitt when Pruitt’s house was featured on the walk several years ago.
“She is a master gardener, a four-time winner,” Marshall said of Pruitt. This year, the two encountered fellow hosting alum Paula Newton, of East Hazel Crest, forging the exact community connections Lippert was hoping for. The three helped each other up to continue their stroll, singing the praises of the Schuch grounds.
“The variety of pines is really amazing,” Newton assessed, as Pruitt nodding vigorously, chimed in, “This is No. 1 on my list.”
Hearing of that interaction delighted Lippert, as fostering connections and raising awareness are vital to her mission.
“Yes, we raise money for Aunt Martha’s and Respond now, and that is wonderful,” she said, adding she likes to keep one goal in mind. “Celebrating the beauty of our Southland communities. We are overlooked by the metropolitan area, and they are missing out. We create a lot of beauty out here.”
Laura Bruni is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
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