Focus — The Pros at Home
ILCA Visits with Craig by Nina Koziol
When Craig Bergmann
was five years old, his father gave him a 20’ x 20’ plot of ground at their Glen Ellyn home. “My dad was an avid gardener. Evenings and weekends he was out in the garden and when I was old enough to follow him he’d give me tasks. I was mad that he lifted up the old brick patio to put in concrete and I asked him if I could have the bricks. So we edged the beds with bricks and whenever my dad went shopping for plants I’d go with him with my allowance money. I’d ask neighbors for starts of things, and my aunts and uncles would share — you know real gardeners share.” The rest, as they say, is history. For the past four decades his firm Craig Bergmann Landscape Design in Lake Forest, has received critical acclaim for projects not only in Illinois but in at least a dozen states from coast-tocoast. He also operates a 25-acre nursery in Wadsworth. “It’s certainly not anything I thought I’d do as a kid.”
Beginnings
Bergmann’s childhood home was near woods and water. “There were acres of ponds and wildlife to explore with other kids. During the summer, our moms would pack lunch and say be back by five.” That personal interaction with nature throughout his youth ignited his interest in flora and fauna. While attending DePaul in 1977, he worked at a flower shop across the street from the university. “A very elegant woman came in and asked who arranged the flowers.” It was his work and she was so impressed she hired him to do a garden for her husband’s birthday. “A four-acre garden in Kenilworth! It was my first North Shore client. We worked with them for some 20 years.” He graduated with a BS in biology in 1981 and founded Craig Bergmann Landscape Design, Inc. in 1982.
Inspiration
The Kenilworth couple championed his work with friends and neighbors. “It was good karma,” he said. His first Lake Forest project was for Posy Krehbiel, whose expansive estate, Camp Rosemary, was designed by (continued on page 24)
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The Landscape Contractor May 2022
