Village Planters

Lake Bluff Garden Club partners with the Village of Lake Bluff to design, plant and re-plant the downtown district's 47 concrete urns and planters with seasonal flowers and greenery every spring, summer, fall and winter. We also ring in the December holiday season by “greening the gazebo,” decorating the tree, and wrapping the downtown lamp posts in color. These projects help beautify the business district and are a lot of fun for club members! Click the photo above to learn more and see examples of our work.

Public Gardens

Our club created Washington Park in 1995 and restored it in 2020. We continue to maintain this oasis of beauty and calm at the corner of Sheridan Road and Washington Avenue. We also tend the Blue Star Memorial Garden at the Lake Bluff Metra Station, and we're working with the Village admin to create a public garden for our Margot McMahon Dance sculpture, a six-foot-tall steel structure that we gifted to Lake Bluff on our 75th anniversary. Click the photo above for more information. 

Education

We love learning and developing new skills. Lake Bluff Garden Club hosts presentations on topics such as caring for trees, winter seed sowing, vegetable gardening, growing native plants, floral design, attracting birds, container gardening, and dahlia growing -- just to name a few. We also have an annual garden walk that's a high point of the summer season. Many members are experts in horticulture, flower arranging and/or environmental stewardship and love sharing their knowledge.

Every year we celebrate Arbor Day with Lake Bluff Park District preschoolers by engaging the kids in storytelling and planting a tree. Young ecologists and arborists in the making! We also host education programs that are open to the community, on topics such as native gardening, the importance of caring for oak trees, cultivating rain gardens, and working native plants into the landscape.

Lake Bluff Garden Club has a rich tradition of service to our community with a focus on enhancing its beauty and celebrating its milestones. We donated trees along our major boulevard, Center Avenue.  We donated the Sylvia Shaw Judson geese sculpture to the Lake Bluff Library, and we gifted the Margot McMahon Dance sculpture to Lake Bluff in honor of our club's 75th anniversary.

Throughout a history that extends more than 100 years, the dedicated members of Lake Bluff Garden Club have left their mark on our village.  Lake Bluff History Museum has an extensive archive of club records, providing charming and sometimes touching insights into the history of our community and our nation. Click the photo above to dive into our story.