All posts related to the Gardens & Grounds
Category: Gardens & Grounds
Project Update, Spring 2020
Despite the current health crisis, there’s a feeling of great anticipation here at Cantigny. With winter behind us, we’re glad to be back outside and working again! That said, COVID-19 is slowing our progress a bit as we follow the...
Little Mermaid All Shined Up
Some things at Cantigny are simply iconic. The McCormick House north portico. The WWI “doughboy” outside the Visitors Center. The Dick Tracy bunker at Cantigny Golf. Another strong candidate for icon status is the mermaid statue in the mansion’s south...
War on Buckthorn!
A walk around the edges of the park this spring and summer could be a revealing experience. The look is a lot more open thanks to recent work by Cantigny Horticulture. Why the change? In a word, buckthorn. The invasive...
Project Update, Fall 2019
The goal of Project New Leaf has always been to preserve and enhance Cantigny Park for current and future generations of visitors. We’ve made significant progress toward that objective in 2019 during Phase II. Also this year, Cantigny guests enjoyed...
A New Home for “Spirit of Commitment”
During Phase I of Project New Leaf, the “Lion of Cantigny” statue outside the Cantigny Visitors Center took a sky ride, hanging from a cable en route to a new location as part of the front plaza renovation. According to...
Expanded Hosta Garden Now Open
Cantigny Park’s newly designed and expanded hosta garden, a collaboration with the Northern Illinois Hosta Society, is open! A ribbon-cutting for the garden took place on July 12 and included a talk by renowned hosta expert and author Mark Zilis....
Back to the Fountain Future
The Fountain Garden behind the Visitors Center has long been a favorite spot for Cantigny guests. This will surely remain the case after Phase II renovations are completed in 2020. Renowned landscape architect Franz Lipp created the Cantigny Gardens in...
Project Update, Fall 2018
This fall we’re putting the finishing touches on the first phase of Project New Leaf, our five-year revitalization plan for Cantigny Park. It’s been a year of steady progress. Even with construction during most of 2018, Park attendance is up...
Meet the Oaks
Cantigny Park’s Oak Colonnade, a key part of Project New Leaf, is complete. The new pedestrian walkways and civic scale allée of oak trees at the front of the park will serve as a dramatic and unifying landscape element for...
Elevating the Guest Experience
A year ago, naming the highest point on Cantigny’s 500 acres might have been a puzzler. Now there is no question: It’s Butterfly Hill, the newly created overlook at the south end of the Oak Colonnade. At approximately 800 feet...