Publications & Sites 
Hinsdale gardeners decorate Oak Brook’s Graue Mill
Jo Ann Hunt (foreground) a member of the Garden Study Club of Hinsdale, sorts and trims evergreen boughs as the club makes a giant wreath to hang on the south wall of the Graue Mill in Oak Brook. | Jon Langham~for Sun-Times Media
Article Extras
Updated: January 28, 2013 1:58AM
OAK BROOK
The Garden Study Club of Hinsdale decked the mill with boughs of holly, balsam and yew.
Club members estimate they have been making a giant wreath to hang outside the Graue Mill in Oak Brook for 20 years.
“We use the same form every year,” said club member Mary Ann Parks of Hinsdale.
The metal form creates a wreath about 10 feet in diameter. This year’s wreath is composed of boughs from holly bushes, juniper, blue spruce, yew, balsam, Scotch pine trees and other evergreens.
“Most of the branches are donated from people’s yards,” said, Patty Colin, the club president, who lives in Western Springs.
Phyllis Janik said she purposely did not trim her junipers and holly bushes to save them for this purpose.
She and three other club members spent an hour and a half on Sunday in her back yard cutting branches.
“It’s nice to have all local greens,” Janik of Hinsdale said.
The women tied bunches of boughs together with wire and then lashed the bundled greenery to the wreath frame which rested on a table while they worked.
Asked if when they start, they know whether they have collected enough evergreen branches, Colin said, “We don’t.”
“We never do,” Parks said.
“We just keep stuffing them on until we don’t have anymore room,” said Pamela Coan.
The women also brought gloves and wire clippers for the job. What else did they need?
“Coffee, coffee cake and Christmas music,” they said.
“It’s the highlight of our year,” Colin said.
Workers from the Cook County Forest Preserve District hung the wreath on the south wall of the Graue Mill above the door, at 3800 York Road.~.
