| 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. Located south of the Visitors Center, near the new restrooms and visitor information building, the new space is maintained by Cantigny Horticulture and NIHS volunteers. It contains about 300 hostas and 100 companion plants.
Working together, Cantigny and NIHS have created a showcase for hostas in a variety of settings as specimens, in clusters, as borders, in raised beds and rock gardens, and in containers. Attractive new pathways of crushed stone guide visitors through the plants.
“This is one of my favorite gardens,” said Craig Kruckenberg, Cantigny horticulture manager. “It offers a very calm and peaceful setting, even though it’s only steps away from some of the park’s busiest areas.”
The success of the NIHS/Cantigny partnership was validated in August 2016 when the American Hosta Society designated the Cantigny Park Hosta Garden as a National Display Garden, only the 25th such garden in the country.
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