Mokena Chamber Of Commerce Garden Walk Scheduled For July 17

By Jon DePaolis, Richard Free Press:

MOKENA, Ill. — Garden lovers will descend upon Mokena on Saturday, July 17, for the Mokena Chamber of Commerce’s second annual Garden Walk.

The event, which is scheduled to run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., will feature tours of eight local gardens and will take place rain or shine. Tickets are $20 if purchased in advance and $25 on the day of the event. No refunds will be given.

Participants need to stop at the Mokena Chamber of Commerce office, 11104 Front St., prior to the event to pick up a map of the gardens. Parking is available in the Metra lot across from the office, which will open at 9:30 a.m. on the day of the event.

The event is the brainchild of Laurie Fleischer. The idea came to her last year, when she found out the Mokena Chamber of Commerce was missing out on several of its fundraisers because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“And I found out they got no government backing, no help financially,” she said. “Where businesses could apply for loans, they couldn’t.”

Fleischer said she had previously organized arts and craft shows with a friend in Frankfort.

“I started to think that since I’ve been gardening since 2000, and I have friends that garden, what about doing a garden walk,” she recalled. “I looked into it to see if anyone else was [doing one]. I found out that they all had been canceled … because they were run by older groups of women, and they couldn’t get together because of COVID.”

From there, Fleischer said she drove day and night through all of Mokena to scout out gardens that could be featured in the inaugural walk. Once she had the roster of gardens in place, the event quickly fell into place.

It was a hit with the participants, as she heard from several afterward that thanked her and the organizers for providing a way for people to get out of their houses during the pandemic.

“That was another reason I did it — to give people an escape,” she said.

The event also was able to raise some funds for the Chamber.

“I knew they were hurting,” she said. “We ended up making enough to help out.”

For this year’s walk, there will be six new gardens showcased. The other two gardens are repeats from last year but feature new plantings.

“They are very large gardens that cannot be seen all at once,” Fleischer said. “One of [those] has planted another 250 perennials and put in a waterfall. It will be totally different.”

She also commented on the unique plantings participants may see on the walk.

“You can get some ideas for your own yard or you might see some plants you’ve never seen before,” she said. “Some of these gardeners are in gardening clubs, so they’ve got a lot of different perennials and annuals you may have not seen elsewhere.”

Fleischer said some vendors will be located along the garden walk, as well as some alcoholic beverages at stops provided for free as part of the event. The price of admission also includes one raffle ticket.

“I hope we get a good turnout and nice weather,” she said.

Fleischer thanked the gardeners who participated last year and this year.

“It’s a lot of work, especially in the heat in the summertime, to do this and put this together,” she said. “If it wasn’t for them, we couldn’t do this fundraiser.”

She also thanked Mokena Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Melissa Fedora for believing in and supporting the event, as well as Cindy Gamboa for helping promote it. She also thanked Linda Malmborg, who helped organize the event, and Image360 Mokena for creating the signs for it.

For more information about the Garden Walk or to purchase tickets, visit https://www.mokena.com/garden-walk/.

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