Here at Eagleson Landscape Co., the Eagleson family often finds themselves wandering among the flora on and off the job. The plant-loving couple, Bill and Elizabeth Eagleson, had quite the adventure this summer discovering hidden garden havens in northern Illinois. They were taking their daughter Katie to the Chicago airport so she could fly to Japan to teach English. Bill and Elizabeth decided they needed to find something fun to do while they were in the area. One of Eagleson Landscape Co.’s clients recommended they visit a renowned hosta farm and a Japanese garden near Rockford, IL. Bill shares the highlights of their three-day trip.

“Our first stop was at The Land of the Giants hosta farm,” said Bill, “which has absolutely wonderful hosta. This place is about half an hour north into Wisconsin, owned by Jeff and Penny Miller. They grow several thousand different kinds of hosta, and have several hundred of each kind.”

“Penny Miller loves daylilies, and they had a ton of those as well. Elizabeth and I felt like kids in a candy shop. If we had a bigger vehicle, we would’ve gone away with a lot more hosta.”

“Our next stop was Anderson Japanese Gardens, commissioned by John Anderson in 1978 when he fell in love with the concept of Japanese gardens. We fell in love with it too! He hired one of the best specialist designers to build the garden on his personal property. Now it is a public garden.”

“We loved just about everything we saw. There was fabulous boulder work, bridges, and a lot of really neat, unique features. It was 100 degrees out when we visited, but being the avid-crazy garden people we are, we walked around until late afternoon.”

“As we were headed back to our hotel, we saw a conservatory garden and decided to stop by. We walked around the outside gardens along the Rockford river, and we were struck by how many people were out enjoying this lovely area. Most of them were in their 20s, and at first we thought this must just be the hangout place in Rockford …but then we found out they were actually all Pokémon players, and this was a Poke-Go hotspot (needless to say, we found this hilarious).”

“On our last day, we enjoyed an arboretum, quite a few nurseries, and an older garden that I could recommend to any garden enthusiast. It was beastly hot out again, but we braved the sun and came away with a vehicle full of dwarf evergreens, Japanese maples, and hosta, some for our clients and some for us. We would definitely visit again (hopefully when it’s cooler). After returning home, Elizabeth and I just looked at each other and said ‘what an adventure’.”