Doug Wood profile

Who Is This Man?

When it rains it pours. Or so it did in 2005, when Feinberg School staff member Doug Wood and the Wicker Park Garden Club for which he serves as coordinator received six awards, including two from the City of Chicago. At a November ceremony at the Garfield Park Conservatory, Wood and the garden club were recognized as Mayor Daley's Gardener of the Year and recipient of Mayor Daley's First Place Community Landscaping Award for region 1 (the city is divided into five regions).

In addition, the group received the Wicker Park-Bucktown Chamber of Commerce's William Jaconetti Community Service award, a service award for park development from First Ward Alderman Manny Flores, an honorable mention for Gardener of the Year from the organization GreenNet, and recognition from the Chicago Park District's Board of Commissioners, which through a special resolution recognized Wood and the club for landscape development, educational programming, and community networking.

Why all the fuss? In 2002 Wood and the garden club began transforming Wicker Park, bounded by Wicker Park and Damen Avenues and Schiller Street on the city's near northwest side, from a hangout for drug dealers to an 8,000-square-foot perennial garden now viewed as a community treasure. It all started when the home garden he developed with friend Denise Browning drew attention from neighbors.

"All our neighbors stopped and asked us gardening questions," recalls Wood, senior research technologist in urology, who grew up gardening in Iowa City, where his family owned 45 acres, including 5 acres of gardens. "It seemed the perfect neighborhood to have educational activity related to gardening. I was drawn to the park because in 2002 its fountain was being restored, but the landscaping was ugly. I wanted to create landscaping that complimented the fountain."

A resident of the Wicker Park neighborhood, Wood re-energized the garden club for this undertaking and at every step invited the input of neighborhood organizations and businesses so they would also feel ownership of the developing gem. He applied for numerous grants to purchase plant material and create educational programming, receiving funding from organizations such as the Chicago Botanic Garden and Friends of the Parks. In addition, Wood networked with organizations such as GreenNet, an association of Chicago-area gardening groups whose work is geared toward community gardens.

But Wood's vision went beyond creating a garden to developing a focal point for education and the arts in his neighborhood. To that end he and the garden club developed a lecture series, monthly garden "socials" in summer, and the Garden as Gallery and Stage exhibit, in which Wood collaborated with eight visual artists and installed their work in the park.

But amidst all this success, Wood and Brown were in for a shock. In February 2005 they were informed that the property on which their home garden grew had been sold. The garden-loving landlord who allowed them to use the lot had died, and his next of kin had sold it before Wood and Browning had a chance to bid on it. The new owner agreed to let them keep the plants and gave them four months to relocate them. Frenzy ensued as Wood and Browning planned how to incorporate their garden of 1,800 plants—valued at $45,000—into the park garden. They estimate they spent 1,000 hours digging up and inventorying plants, figuring out where and when to transplant them, and relocating them—prize-worthy in and of itself.

To see the fruits of their labor and learn about upcoming programs at the garden, visit the club's Web site: www.wpgarden.org.