Children tour the koi pond in the garden of Jean Cunningham and Alan Riggs, 1246 Maple Ave. Photo by Richard Kahan
After a humid, muggy week, the air cooled and the sun shone just in time for the 34th annual Evanston Garden Walk on Sunday.
Hundreds of people participated in the 2024 Evanston Garden Walk from noon to 5 p.m., visiting eight gardens hosted by plant lovers across the city. Many of the gardens offered refreshing beverages and snacks. The walk spanned more than four miles, stretching from Thayer Street in the north to Trahan Park at the intersection of Ridge Avenue and Monroe Street in the south. To participate, members of Evanston's gardening community paid $20 to $30. All proceeds went to the Evanston Environmental Association. The walk is the EEA's largest fundraising event.
Kathleen Todd has served on the Evanston Garden Walk committee for 10 years and has written and edited some of the booklets introducing the walk and the gardens. Her backyard is one of eight gardens selected for this year's walk. It's not the first time her garden has been selected, but she said she “worked hard to prepare” for Sunday.
“You might think you have a nice looking yard, but when you know you're taking a walk in the yard, it really adds to the effort,” Todd says.
Todd said the committee's scouting process for the event involves walking around neighborhoods scouting gardens and peeking through gaps in fences on various alleys in Evanston. While owners can nominate their own gardens, most of the entries are recommendations from other residents who stumble upon great gardens in Evanston. The selection process began more than a year ago, and the list for the 2025 walk is already set.
Michelle and Bob Goodman's garden was recommended by a neighbor. The Goodmans' expansive backyard is filled with peonies planted by the home's original owner in 1894. When the Goodmans purchased their home, they had to deal with excess water pooling on one side of the backyard. After leveling the ground, they were able to direct rainwater into a rain garden, where it drained and created a pond full of plants that thrive in the excess water.
This is just one of the many ways the Goodmans are making their garden eco-friendly. Instead of using toxic repellents, they plant garlic throughout the yard to keep rabbits away. Sustainable gardening practices like this are becoming a common theme throughout Evanston's gardening community.
“Evanston gardeners are very environmentally conscious,” Todd says, “so they try to garden in harmony with nature, not dominate it.”
Whether it's other strategies for water harvesting or reducing pesticide use and eliminating grass, there's a clear movement to garden sustainably, and Evanston is at the forefront of that.
“There's a lot of interesting work happening in Evanston that's rethinking what it means to be a gardener,” Todd said.
At every stop along the walk, the gardens were comprised primarily of native plants. Todd and Michelle Goodman agree that it's important for Evanston's gardens to use native American plants, but also plants from the Midwest in particular. Insects and plants in the region have evolved together, and that connection helps support the food chain.
Christian Brooks agrees that native gardening is important, but believes “native and ornamental plants can coexist.” Brooks moved to Evanston in 2006 and has been involved in public gardening since 2017. He works as a horticultural assistant at Lurie Gardens in Millennium Park, where he manages five acres of land. Brooks has participated in the walk before and says it's a unique experience that sets Evanston apart in the horticultural world.
“You don't often get a chance to see people's backyards and they create their own backyard oases, so this is kind of a little peek behind the scenes,” she said.
On Sunday, Brooks volunteered at Trahan Park, where she often works alongside Rick Mihebuk, a longtime Evanston resident who lives next door to the park and took it upon himself to renovate the park 15 years ago, after it had fallen into neglect and disrepair.
“I saw it and it was ugly and I decided it didn't have to be ugly,” he said.
Mihebuk funded the job himself, dragging a hose from his backyard and across the alley to the park. It took hours of work, but his efforts did not go unnoticed and he connected with Steven Walker, the City of Evanston's Greenways Superintendent, who installed a water system in the park.
Brooks designed one of the park's many garden installations, which reflects her approach to horticulture. She is passionate about beautifying Evanston and wants to use her experience to bring the beautiful gardens of public spaces, like Lurie Gardens, into residents' private spaces. Part of Brooks' philosophy is to make gardens look wilder, more like natural ecosystems.
“The days of the perfect green lawn are becoming a thing of the past, which is a really good thing, because to achieve that you need a ton of chemicals and a ton of gasoline-powered machinery that's now being banned,” Brooks said.
Evanston is dotted with beautiful gardens that often go overlooked, but events like the Evanston Garden Walk bring awareness to the growing community that is in many ways the heart of our town.
(See below for more scenes from the garden walk. Click on the photos to enlarge the image and view caption information. The following photos are by Richard Cahan.)
