Greater DuPage Chapter Events

Address: 970 Sylvan Circle, Naperville, IL

A trip to Mel and Carolyn Finzer's 1-acre yard promises to be a colorful, whimsical, enchanting, and eclectic adventure filled with trails leading you to a Fairie Garden/ Acorn Lodge/ Gnome Haus/ Peace Pole/ Hops vine Tipi/ 3 raised water gardens in antique containers/ a Goddess grotto/ Blue Bird Cove/ red rope hammock/ Chinese Empresses Tea Garden/ 3 painted poetry palettes (including a Bird Call Totem Pole)...abundant HERB containers/ a wall of botanical ironwork/ 48 birdhouses/ a bat house/ and 1-of-a-kind unusual "junque sculptures" and quirky objects.

The Finzer yard is registered with the National Wildlife Federation; the Illinois Audubon Bird & Butterfly habitat program; the conservation@home program; the Wild Ones; Monarch Watch; the Xerces Society; Sierra Club; and in 2003 it received the Blazing Star Award from Willowbrook Wildlife Center...it has been featured in Birds & Blooms magazine, the Best of Birds & Blooms, and Chicagoland Gardening magazine.

The property has bur oak, black walnut, sugar maple, choke cherry, ginkgo, Ohio buckeye, sycamore, tulip tree, grey and pagoda dogwoods, redbuds, holly, black locust, lilac, spice bush, witch hazel, oakleaf hydrangeas, forsythia, wild prairie rose, sumac, Japanese quince, flowering crabapples, ...and a rich variety of native prairie plants and perennials....Saint Fiacre, patron saint of gardeners, stands in the middle of an herb garden!

Carolyn is an artist, teacher, and professional storyteller who is the garden guru of this wondrous space....she invites you to visit her Bowling Ball Caterpillar that will fill you with JOY.....16 tiny metal bells hanging from bushes and arbors will ring like Lily of the Valleys....100s of plants ABOUND in this creative habitat; this place of PEACE.

Following this tour, a second native garden tour will take place nearby at 11:00 AM. We invite you to attend one or both of these special garden experiences.

Click here for details for both yard tours including pictures.

Address: 916 W. Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL

Considered downtown Naperville, this yard presents a native landscape evolving (never finished) since 2010. Paw Paws, Prairie Docks, coneflowers, Big Bluestem, Indian Grass, 41-year-old oak trees, mushrooms and much more!

Queen of the Prairie rises before a tall tipi. Water resonates from 2 fountains attracting splashy bathers. Kiwi vines shade the deck while rain barrels catch silver drops and compost transforms. Witness history in a 1934 ladder from Centennial Beach, a bell from a Santa Fe locomotive, a garden shed built from a local barn, and a settler’s limestone foundation block.

There is much to see and much to be done, but relax, come see what the day delivers on Saturday, June 14th, 2025. Rest in the hammock under oak and pine. Beverage and biscuit provided.

Parking on Jefferson Avenue, Parkway Drive, or a few spots in the 2 driveways of the home.

This tour is the second of two native garden visits in Naperville on June 14. You’re welcome to join one or both!

Click here for details for both yard tours including pictures.

Details coming soon! 

Details coming soon! 

Details coming soon!