Garden Walks

Oohs and aahs are a common refrain every time the Whitefish Bay Garden Club holds a Garden Walk showcasing unique green spaces throughout the Village.

Our first walk, “Quilts in the Garden,” was held in July 2017. It was a huge success, drawing over 800 attendees from the greater Milwaukee metro area and across southeast Wisconsin. Attempts to hold another Garden Walk were made in 2020 and 2021 but were thwarted by COVID-19.

In 2024, the magic happened again. Our “Small Spaces, Grand Places” walk featured 12 private and community gardens across Whitefish Bay. These beautiful spaces were all ecological, sustainable, and varied in style. Attendees marveled at artichoke plants growing near Lake Michigan and historic gardens tweaked for today’s needs. The gardens showcased imaginative urban settings atop a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, gardens that thrive in the shade, and others that offered sublime surprises at every turn. For tasks from selecting the gardens to planning the timing, we had the help of 20 committee members and nearly 100 volunteers. Once again, it was a huge success, attended by over 775 gardening enthusiasts.

The Garden Walks are our biggest fundraising effort, and money raised from these inspiring and informative events is used to support the many projects and gardens managed by the Whitefish Bay Garden Club. Examples include:

Restore and maintain butterfly and crucial pollinator habitats, including the Cahill Butterfly Garden, Cahill Park Prairie, Silver Spring Park, and the Klode Pollinator Patch, as well as other pollinator patches throughout the Village. Club members weed, water, mulch, and plant these gardens.
Provide community education through a speaker series on a wide range of topics, including native plants, birdscaping, butterflies and native bees, and government representatives talking about environmental initiatives.
Organize and host regular weedouts in Village parks to remove invasive plants (including garlic mustard, buckthorn, and invasive grasses) from our parks and along Lake Michigan.
Advocate for sustainable land management in our public green spaces, which directly affect the air we breathe and the water in Lake Michigan that we rely on.
Support Whitefish Bay as a designated Bird City and Monarch City.
Create youth gardening initiatives in our schools and community.
Organize activities and participate in Green Day in the Bay.
Support our local farmers market each summer.
Make philanthropic donations to other local organizations and projects with missions aligned with ours.

The Club has a goal of repeating the Garden Walks every three years. Our next walk will be in July 2027. Plans are already underway, and we are searching for spaces to share with the community. If you know of a garden in the Bay that might be of interest to others, please let us know! Featured gardens can be large or small, cut flower gardens or native plant gardens, shade gardens, rain gardens, and anything else that would be great to share! Please contact us at wfbgardenclub@gmail.com.