DIXON AREA GARDEN CLUB

Club History

The history begins with the Dixon Men's Garden Club, formed in 1950, with 26 charter members. As many gardeners do throughout the United States, the early members had as their annual project, the planting of scattered small flower beds throughout the City of Dixon. The flowers helped to brighten up the streetscape for their citizens and to present a cheery welcome to visitors to their community, located 90 miles west of Chicago in Northern Illinois.

In the late 1950's, a combination of Dutch Elm disease and a major highway expansion program necessitated the removal of all the trees along the main roadways of the community, transforming the tree lined canopy to a 4 lane highway with earth raceways, previously referred to as "the tree banks."

The members of the Dixon Men's Garden Club, concerned with the image presented by the barren appearance voted to direct their efforts toward a beautification project for this particular area. Thus began the Petunia Story!

The Petunia Story

In the spring of 1960 and also in 1961, the club members took upon themselves to purchase 4,500 Petunias and plant the plants along each side of less than one-half mile. In 1962, the program having proven a winner with visitors and citizens, was expanded to cover an additional three-quarters mile on South Galena Avenue with an additional 6,000 plants being planted.

The following year the project grew to the planting of Petunias in excess of 11, 000 plants. Petunias lined both sides of the Illinois marked streets for a distance of 1-1/2 miles. Having reached this level, the program remained the same from 1964 through 1966. However, at the latter part of 1964 interested citizens, using the theme of the Petunia plantings, spawned the idea of a Petunia Festival during the 4th of July Holiday. Since that time the Dixon Petunia Festival Corporation and the Dixon Chamber of Commerce, the selected coordinating agent for the entire operation, have annually staged entertainment for an outstanding attraction to the community.

The annual festival also fostered an environment for the Dixon Men's Garden Club to totally fund the Petunia plantings by sponsoring during the festival, a pancakes and sausage breakfast, fish dinners and chicken dinners to many visitors to Page Park, the location of the Festival. In later years, the chicken & fish dinners were eliminated and the sale of Christmas Trees during the holiday season supplemented the goals of the club.

In the spring of 1967, additional highway improvements to the western edge of the city enabled the Garden Club to extend the flowers plantings another one-half mile. The total planting program over 2 miles of Petunia-lined streets required over 15,000 pink petunia plants. In the spring and summer of 1968, saw another 3,500 Petunia plants added to mass display of color along the State of Illinois marked traffic lanes in the city. The 1969 planting program saw 18,500 pink flowers along the streets of Dixon and remained close to that number until the turn of the century.

The sole responsibility of the program management remained with the Dixon Men's Garden Club. A local greenhouse planted the Petunias in February and nurtured them to the planting day in late May. The additional help of volunteers in planting and weeding plants, the Dixon Street Department in providing tilling of planting beds, in providing additional summer student help for weeding, and in watering the thirsty plants aided the club members in this project.

On March 27, 1999, the Illinois Ninety-First General Assembly, House of Representatives passed House Resolution No. 374 declaring the City of Dixon the Petunia Capital of Illinois.

In the recent past, as plantings grew to over 24,000 plants, including special bed plantings, hanging pots on the Rock River bridge and planter boxes in the Central Business District, the club changed its name to the Dixon Area Garden Club (DAGC) to welcome women to join the club.

In 2001 through 2002, the vigor of the Petunia plants suffered in declining vitality of beds, drought conditions, and insufficient maintenance in weeding and watering. In addition, declining membership, aging of members, and rising cost versus income lessened the Dixon Area Garden Club's ability to do all that was necessary to maintain this program. It became necessary to allow the community to take a greater share of the responsibility for the project.

The DAGC leadership approached Dixon Mayor James Burke about the Dixon Area Garden Club's concern for the program, the need to renovate the planting beds, to change plant types, to increase intensive maintenance, to increase watering frequency and to establish citizenry shared ownership in the planting program. DAGC agreed to continue to provide the care for 8 blocks of plantings, to maintain DAGC funding levels at current levels, and to help advise volunteers how to renovate beds, to properly plant the petunias and maintain them. DAGC also agreed to provide funding for one year for larger potted Wave Petunia plants as an experiment to give the plants more strength to withstand the shock of transplanting and to assure fuller beds.

The City in turn, recruited volunteers to care, during the entire growing season, for sections throughout the community to assure a better looking display for the Petunias. The City also provided a part-time foreman that is in charge of making sure that the beds are properly tilled, soil fertilized, and planting beds watered.

A committee, appointed by Dixon's Mayor Burke is presently organizing an annual funding outing where it is hoped that at least $20,000 will result toward the Petunia Program approaching 30,000 plants being extended to the city limits on all major thoroughfares and filling other planting beds throughout the city.

The local newspaper, The Telegraph, published by Sauk Valley Newspapers, Sterling, IL continues to provide support by featuring the Petunia planting program's need for volunteer support, DAGC funding events, and other programs by the club.

The torch, it seems, is changing hands from the DAGC's prime responsibility to the citizens of Dixon, leaving DAGC to seek other ways to implement other gardening projects to benefit the community.