Enjoy a Saturday afternoon at the Crowe classic garden and Craig Bergmann’s and Paul Klug’s country-style garden in Lake Forest on July 31. Both of these design and horticultural delights were featured in Ben Lenhardt’s recent book, Gardens of the North Shore of Chicago.

Begin your tour at Peggy Crowe’s garden at the early twentieth-century Howard Van Doren Shaw house that she and her late husband, Jack, purchased in 1990. The Crowes restored the house and grounds and added garden rooms designed by the late noted English landscape designer Rosemary Verey and installed by Craig Bergmann, landscape architect. In addition, Bergmann created an adjoining garden room with a rose festoon chain and Jack designed an elegant allée of plane trees. On a tour with the Garden Conservancy Society of Fellows to Newport, Jack saw a replica of the 1793 Derby Summer House in Massachusetts, which he had admired in a book more than 40 years earlier. He decided to build one himself, and today a refined Federal-style garden house commands the pool garden. This Renaissance couple has created a sophisticated classic garden with perennials and annuals adding touches of color and grace throughout. Peggy Crowe and Craig Bergmann will tell stories of the garden’s development and show you around the garden.  

Afterwards, you will make your way to the Gardens at 900, a stunning collection of garden rooms that Craig Bergmann has created since 2009, when he and his partner, Paul Klug, purchased the former property of A. Watson and Elsa Armour. David Adler and Robert Work designed the two gatehouses, motor house buildings and landscape that today are surrounded by a montage of spaces: a parking grove, entry garden, double borders, shade garden, orchard, and pool garden. Bergmann will speak about the development of the garden and walk the property showing old roses, unique perennials, hedges in various shapes, manicured topiaries, and formal borders with peonies, foxgloves, phlox, and astilbes. Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served throughout your stay while you wander winding paths and greet other garden enthusiasts.