The Changing Face of Public Gardens

Cantigny Park: Revitalizing a Cherished Public Garden

by Heather Prince

On a quiet road in western DuPage County, Cantigny Park has undergone sweeping changes as it renovates, renews and refreshes for the next chapter of this 500acre public garden and golf course. Known for the First Division Museum with its outdoor display of tanks tucked under mature oaks, there’s more to discover at this venerable site.

Originally the home of Colonel Robert McCormick, Cantigny was bequeathed as a public park upon his death in 1955. McCormick is best known as the longtime editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune newspaper. In 1967, renowned landscape architect Franz Lipp created nearly 30 acres of display gardens, themed plantings and woody plant collections.

In 2017, Cantigny Park launched Project New Leaf, a multi-year revitalization project designed to refresh and renew every aspect of the park, enhancing the visitor experience for current and future generations. Now the garden spaces of Cantigny are dynamic, sustainable, and thoughtfully planted with a stunning array of landscape design styles. You might come for tanks, but you’ll linger the rest of the day in the riotous display beds, bustling Idea Garden, and tranquil Green Garden.

We talked with Scott Witte, Director of Horticulture, to

explore all the new landscape features.

Witte has been with Cantigny for decades. “I first got to Cantigny in 1995 as head golf course superintendent,” he recounted. “It wasn’t until 2018 when I jumped the fence and switched roles from then director of agronomy for the golf course to the director of horticulture at Cantigny Park.” Witte oversees the forestry team for all 500 acres, both golf and park, the horticulture team that designs and installs all garden display beds in the park and golf course and with the greenhouse production team; and the park grounds team. “We have an 18,000-square-foot greenhouse that produces over 200,000 plants a year used for spring, summer, and fall garden displays throughout the park and golf course. We also grow over 3,500 poinsettias, 1,400 of which are grown for the Wheaton A.M. Rotary Club to sell for their annual fund raisers.” There are 15 full-time staff, 15 to 17 seasonal staff, and around 75 volunteers who maintain and install the gardens. (continued on page 26)

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The first phase of Project New Leaf focused on the visitor arrival experience, redesigning the First Division Museum, redoing picnic and play facilities plus construction of stormwater management facilities. The second phase concentrated on garden renovation and the third phase is centered around renovations at McCormick House. Cantigny partnered with Sasaki Associates, an international landscape design firm. Sasaki referenced original landscape architect Franz Lipp’s initial landscape plan for Cantigny from the late 1960s. Their enhancements created a cleaner connectivity while maintaining the system of Lipp’s garden rooms. “Sasaki paid homage to Franz Lipp’s geometric shapes in the lower display garden,” observed Witte. “The bones were here for the Octagon Garden, for example, but it’s totally revamped and reimagined with new drainage and new irrigation. In the past, when the weeping Malus was in the middle, it was an obstruction. Now a trellis provides a neat little sanctuary as well as a look through and a cross through, improving traffic flow and sight lines.”

Each garden space was examined, evaluated, and reimagined with an emphasis on connecting the spaces, honoring the past landscapes and creating new opportunities that respond to current garden trends and allow room for future plantings.

Renovating a historic landscape comes with significant challenges. “The as-builts for the original infrastructure — fire protection, water lines, our potable water lines, gas, electric, etc. — we didn’t have exact locations for them,” commented Witte. “We had to do potholing and investigative digging. Invariably, we hit everything. And if we didn’t hit it once, we hit it three times. You just can’t overestimate how much stuff is hidden underground on an old site. You’ve no idea that this water line was here, and now you have to design (continued on page 28)

(continued from page 26) around it, under it, over it, or through it.” As grading was changed, trees planted and lighting revisited, old structures were also found. “On the south elevation of the McCormick House when we attempted to run electric lines, we ran into footing walls for an old greenhouse,” reported Witte. “We discovered the foundation from the old stable that burned during the Colonel’s time on the east end of Prairie View. You name it, we ran into it.”

Another challenge was what to do with all the excess soil and construction spoils. Instead of hauling it away, a new garden feature was built from excavated spoils from Phase 1, Butterfly Hill. “Anytime you dig a new trench, all the spoils just add up,” observed Witte. “It costs a lot of money to haul them off, so since we have room, we turned them into another landscape feature. Plus, it was more sustainable to keep it on site.”

Butterfly Hill rises behind the First Division Museum and offers spectacular views of the golf course, including the butterfly-shaped flower bed planted with colorful annuals. There is a wide mown path up the hill and a new short-grass prairie has been installed, with native forbs soon to be plugged in. On a warm summer day, butterflies indeed flit around you as you walk to the top. In September, Cantigny sponsors butterfly tagging and a “Big Sit” birding event on top of the hill.

Considerable thought went into Butterfly Hill’s design and implementation. “I didn’t want it to look like someone dropped a giant sausage out there,” chuckled Witte. “I involved my favorite golf course architect, Doug Myslinski (continued on page 30)

(continued from page 28) with Wadsworth Golf Design, who has helped me redesign innumerable bunkers, tees and features on the golf course. He has a really good eye. It needed to have visual appeal from the golf side and from the park side, but blend in like it has always been here. I think we’ve achieved that.” The grass mix chosen is designed to handle the challenging mishmash of soil composition and is mostly side oats grama and little bluestem. “The objective here is to get a really good, clean, low grass prairie before we begin to plug in native forbs,” commented Witte. “It’s so much easier to get a good grass mix started in large 3- to 4-acre areas when you can boom-spray selective herbicides to keep out invasive species and noxious weeds. This strategy has worked the best for us, and it fuels the burns for later on. We’ve spotsprayed out a lot of the undesirables. This fall, we’re planning a prescribed burn for Butterfly Hill. Once we know we have a rock-solid native grass stand, we’ll grow the native forbs in-house and selectively plug them in in the spring.” The spoils from Phase II were also utilized for a grassy berm near the new Prairie View and Idea Garden. Now it creates another smaller overlook opportunity near Cantigny’s Chimney Swift tower.

Witte freely admits that he is a grass guy. “I have a soil science degree with an emphasis on turfgrass management. But for me, it wasn’t just turf, it was all things green and growing. I have a huge passion for pollinators, pollinator plants, trees, you name it.” Rebooting the allée leading up to the McCormick House allowed Witte to play to his strengths. Originally planted in American elm by Colonel McCormick, only one original tree remains. Over the decades, a mix of different tree species had been planted and it lacked a cohesive design. With Project New Leaf, it was decided to completely replace the trees and update the drainage and irrigation. A double row of Exclamation! London plane tree has been established and Witte oversaw the turf renovation personally. “When I had the opportunity to choose the turf species, I decided to go with Advanced Turf’s turf-type tall fescue,” reported Witte. “I seeded it myself because I love that stuff. We did it just prior to July 1st, 2020. The construction manager told me it was past the seed window, and I took that as (continued on page 34)

(continued from page 30) a personal challenge. It’s what I do! I grow grass. In 5 to 6 days, we had germination. It’s more drought resistant and very disease resistant. I really like it. It’s performing very well.”

Sustainability efforts are threaded through each element of the redesign, from reusing timbers to make fence posts and bridges, repurposing stone in the Idea Garden, to rethinking stormwater containment. The prairie part of Prairie View is gently contoured to channel and hold stormwater through a series of dips and swales planted in native sedges. Stone walkovers allow for aggressive prairie burns without having to worry about plastic culverts melting in the fires. They also provide a subtle visual element.

Gold Pond on the west side of the McCormick House also acts as stormwater retention in addition to being a favorite water feature. “Before the renovation and Project New Leaf, on a heavy downpour, the water from the old pond would go up within three feet of the west door of the McCormick House because there was nothing to contain it,” remembered Witte. “Gold Pond takes on stormwater from Roosevelt Road as well. We’ve got native plants on the shoreline to prevent erosion and to mimic a native stabilized shoreline.” As part of the redesign, more access was created at pond’s edge. “We knew from the old garden that everybody wants to be by water’s edge. There’s just some kind of gravity that pulls you there, so we designed for it with precast stone steps where you can go to the edge and see fish. We stocked it with bluegills and plan to add largemouth bass.”

The horticulture team at Cantigny Park is tasked with crafting sensational seasonal annual plantings, a feature the gardens have long been known for. Staff is encouraged to play with combinations of flowers and foliage for maximum impact and drama. This summer, the Alebrijes: Creatures of a Dream World sculpture exhibit has inspired the plantings. “Our horticulture staff had fun with augmenting the Alebrijes theme with the flower selections like Mexican sunflower, Mexican petunia, Sunpatiens and lots of crazy bright colors to mimic the vivid paint on the sculptures,” said Witte. “We even incorporated poinsettia in the planting mix. We saved some from our crop last winter because they’re native to Mexico.”

Project New Leaf has taken a beautiful public garden and made it breathtaking. Each space was thoughtfully examined, and historic garden spaces refreshed while adding new elements and responding to the changing needs of the park. “Sasaki Associates paid close attention to our garden spaces and their different personalities,” recalled Witte. “As you enter the white garden or the rose garden, you’re entering different rooms. You’re transported to different spaces, and you have a different experience, whether it’s the Green Garden, the Octagon Garden, the Rock Garden or the Logarium in our new shade garden.”

Building on Lipp’s framework, Sasaki emphasized connectivity throughout the park. “There’s so much intent behind every bed,” commented Witte. “The central connector path is one example, from the fountain through the connector garden to the Visitor Center and out to the doughboy statue in front. It’s designed to be a mesh. There’s simplicity and seasonality in the connector garden. In the spring we have daffodils in there. After the daffodils, you have the hawthorn in bloom and, in the summer, we have long-blooming lavender allium, aster and sage.”

As you walk the new paths at Cantigny Park or explore familiar garden rooms, you may enjoy more butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. You might hear children’s laughter from the pond in the Idea Garden as they hunt tadpoles in the spring and goldfish in summer. New colors and textures mesh with the historic bones of the landscape creating a fresh and intriguing experience to visit again and again.