When it comes to gardening and landscaping, Jane Blake of Naperville says her skills at tilling the soil and planting are pretty good but that it never hurts to get a little help from the experts.
“We moved to Naperville last year and we have a 20-year-old unit and the plants are 20 years old. Everything is overgrown. I want something that’s new and colorful and inviting,” she said.
Blake and many others interested in gardening made their way to The Growing Place Garden Center at 2000 Montgomery Road in Aurora on Friday and Saturday for workshops that focused on landscape design and increasing a property’s curb appeal.
“We’ve been offering these hands-on landscape classes off and on for about 10 years,” said Cynthia Cieckiewicz, who works as events manager for The Growing Place. “These classes are always popular. People come away putting in new things or changing what they have. With curb appeal from your front yard, some people don’t like the way things look from one direction and are hoping to improve the overall look.”
Cieckiewicz admitted that even though The Growing Place still remains closed for the season, outdoor planting enthusiasts have been champing at the bit given the record-setting warm weather February has brought.
“We had a class last week about the back yard and common problems like screening and patio privacy, how to create zones in your space and line-of-sight,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s all what you see.You want to be happy and joyful and see things that you like. If we have the opportunity to do that, let’s make it happen.”
Participants at the workshops, Cieckiewicz said, come away with a plan to improve the look of their property.
Friday’s class was led by Marsha Zaranti, who said she works “in trees and shrubs at our Naperville location,” along with Maureen Natonson.
Zaranti said she has worked for 23 seasons at The Growing Place and that classes remain popular “because people are gardeners and they want to learn more, or they may not necessarily be gardeners” as well.
“Today it’s about curb appeal so they know as a good neighbor they need to have their yard looking at least somewhat nice,” she said. “A lot of people are here for us to say ‘choose this, this, and this’ while others want to get a little more involved in it.”
Zaranti said most attending the classes “have been over 50 years old” but that younger people with their first home are also looking for help.
“A lot of these people are retired and have more time to spend on their homes,” she said. “We saw a big burst with this when COVID hit and the interest has certainly continued.”
Blake said she has been actively gardening for decades and that “I did my last home and got a lot of compliments about it.”
“I just want to continue that and have a refresh in Naperville,” she said. “I want to find different textures and colors – everything I currently have is green and there is no color. I want to bring something that compliments my red brick home. This is definitely a passion project.”
Laura Porretto of Aurora was also part of Friday’s class and said she “has a new house in a development and hate what the developers” did as far as landscaping.
“I ripped it all out and expanded the flower beds and put in my own design. Now I’m trying to correct some things that didn’t work out from my original design,” Porretto said. “I started doing this about four years ago and COVID really pushed the gardening bug because that was all you could really do to be outside.”
Carolyn Maddox of Aurora said she is hoping to establish a new landscaping scheme after moving to town last year and putting in a sunroom.
“We took everything out and decided to start all over so we basically have a house without landscaping,” she said. “The curb appeal class was like an opportunity to come talk to the experts here to help me design something. I’m a big gardener. I used to have a half-acre in Indianapolis, but most of my gardens were already established to a certain degree, so I wanted some help doing this from scratch.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
