Lake Forest Garden Club Facts
Lake Forest Garden Club History
About Lake Forest
Websites for More Information

FACTS ABOUT LAKE FOREST GARDEN CLUB

• Is the first member club of The Garden Club of America to apply, and to be invited to exhibit a show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show
  
  
• Founded in Lake Forest, Illinois in 1912. In 1913 was a founding member of The Garden Club of America; and in 1927, a founding member of the Garden Club of Illinois.
  
  
• Objective is the advancement of gardening, promotion of horticultural knowledge, and the stimulation of community interest in conservation and civic planting.
  
  
• Membership today is 150. Active members must reside in Lake Forest, and are expected to work in their own gardens, to demonstrate a real interest in the Club's purposes, and to work with intent on club projects and committees.
  
  
• The club meets at least ten times a year. Programs include floral and horticulture lectures and demonstrations, garden history and design, conservation and environmental education, civic beautification, etc.
  
  
• LFGC is a not-for-profit organization, operating as a charitable undertaking. Funds raised by a bi-annual house walk benefit, are given back to the community in a variety of ways, including; public landscaping, community gardens, horticultural internships, library books, and shoreline conservation, restoration, and recreational development.
  
  
• Recent projects include:
  
  • 2006: Organized and sponsored with five other area Garden Club of America Clubs, a public symposium in April on global warming, which addressed global climate change as it relates to business, globalization, politics, science, oceans, health, and education.
    
  • 1997-2000: Historic Market Square restoration - public/private partnership with the City of Lake Forest to restore hardscape and landscape of first planned shopping district in US.
    
  • 1986-1988: Forest Park Beach restoration on shore of Lake Michigan, one of the five great lakes on the Canadian-United States border. Included shoreline conservation, restoration, recreational development, landscape design and planting.

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LAKE FOREST GARDEN CLUB HISTORY

The Lake Forest Garden Club was founded in 1912 by a handful of forward thinking women as an organization dedicated to horticulture and conservation. Their original mission has been expanded to state that the "objective of the Lake Forest garden Club is the advancement of gardening, the promotion of horticultural knowledge, and the stimulation of community interest in conservation and civic planting."

Today, one hundred and fifty members of the Lake Forest Garden Club enjoy expanding their horticultural knowledge and artistic talents in the garden, in flower arranging, and in working together on projects designed to support civic beautification, conservation, and ecology. Since 1965, a biennial Housewalk has offered, by invitation only, an opportunity to visit some of the beautiful homes and gardens of its members. Funds raised by this event have supported the work of the garden club, a not-for-profit organization.

Each summer for over sixty years the Lake Forest Garden Club organized nature and conservation classes for school children. The Nature Camp has been melded into the nature programs of the Lake Forest Recreation Center. Scholarships continue to be awarded annually for local students and teachers to attend Audubon Nature camps throughout the country and the Lake Forest Recreation Center's Wildlife, Ecology, Wilderness, and Adventure Camp. For older students, a program of summer internships provides an opportunity to work in the field with experts at Lake Forest Open Lands Association.

For more than twenty-five years, Civic Awards have been presented for excellence in landscaping to local businesses and institutions.

Originally wooded, Lake Forest has developed from a region of farms and large country estates to an area of more modest homes and gardens. The trees and ravines of Lake Forest are of enduring interest. From its earliest years, the Lake Forest Garden Club has contributed to the maintenance and protection of our magnificent trees, marking outstanding specimens, planting hundreds of replacements, and sharing its knowledge with fellow citizens. Recently, the club gave the City of Lake Forest a computerized tree inventory and maintenance survey program.

The Lake Forest Garden Club Landscape Design Fund was established in 1994 as an endowment fund. It was created to supplement city plans by providing an outstanding landscape architect or designer for City of Lake Forest projects.

This April, the Lake Forest Garden Club was the leading organizer of a Global Warming Conference underwritten by the Chicago Council of the Garden Club of America. The day-long symposium, open to the public, featured an international panel of leaders in the field of climate change, including Dr. Paul Epstein, Dr. Robert .Gagosian, Dr. Diana Liverman, and Alden Meyer. The keynote speaker was Mr. Ross Gelbspan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for the Washington Post. He was the lead reporter for a recent four part television program on global warming. The conference addressed global climate change as it relates to business, globalization, politics, science, oceans, health and education.

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THE CITY OF LAKE FOREST

• Located in the state of Illinois in the central part of the United States of America
  
• Incorporated in 1861
  
• Developed by Presbyterians in search of a university site; Lake Forest College chartered in 1857
  
• Population over 21,000 in 7,000 households
  
• 17 square miles, 35 miles north of Chicago
  
• 4 public and 2 private elementary schools, 2 middle schools, one public and 2 private high schools, and Lake Forest College
  
• 7 public parks, including a golf course and beach
  
• Eastern boundary formed by Lake Michigan
  
• Grasslands of Skokie River significant terrain feature at junction of the forest and great prairie to the west
  
• Market Square listed on National Register of Historical Places in 1979, referred to as America's first planned shopping center
  

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WEBSITES FOR MORE INFORMATION

Chicago www.cityofchicago.org
Lake County www.lakecounty.org
Lake Forest www.cityoflakeforest.com

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Copyright 2006 - Lake Forest Garden Club - All rights reserved.