I love my container gardens in the growing season, but what’s the best way to brighten your doorstep for the longest season of all: winter? The answer is the easiest kind of container gardening, even for the black thumbs among us. The key is knowing how to create a harmonious design that doesn’t blow over in winter’s first blizzard. I attended Kathryn Deery’s winter containers class at the Garden last year and this is what I learned:
Botanical cocktails that look like scientific potions will be front and center during Science After Hours on Friday, April 12, 2019, 6 to 9 p.m. During the event, adults can geek out on science and try the activities at the Unearth Science festival while sipping cocktails and nibbling on small bites.
Quick poll: Does the word “moving” trigger your anxiety?How about “moving more than 100 plants”?Former Chicago Botanic Garden horticulturist Tom Weaver recently moved to Minnesota to start a new chapter. Along with his husband and dog, he brought his plant family, a love he has nurtured since childhood. “My mom makes fun of me because I knew the Latin names of plants before I could read,” he said.
Are your summer container gardens in need of a fall makeover? Good news! There are many fall-flavored plants that will provide you with texture, form, and long-lasting colors in both flowers and foliage.
Using peonies as a cut flower for floral design is easy, with a few tricks to preserve the health of your plants and flowers. Peonies are the queen of the garden during their blooming season. From late spring through early summer, there is a beautiful abundance of color and shapes blooming, depending on the variety. Finding a variety that is also fragrant adds to the reward of growing this exquisite flower.
For many people, lilacs are a sentimental flower. My mother planted many lilacs on our farm in Kansas. The scent carried across the yard as I played. When my husband and I started our family, planting a lilac in our garden was a priority so our children will have the same heavenly memory of the fragrance and flower.
Compared to photographing flowers outside, photographing in the Greenhouses will be much more challenging and darker than you think.With a limited depth of field, I chose to focus on the "face" I saw in this orchid. Photo ©Carol Freeman
Mealy apples, sprouted potatoes, and wilted celery, oh my! These may sound like candidates for the compost bin, but don’t toss them out just yet. Even if they aren’t fit for consumption, some fruits and veggies might be good for making prints! For younger children, this activity provides ample opportunity to practice color, fruit, and vegetable identification and hone their gross-motor skills. Older children may be interested to know that different foods come from different parts of the plant.
One of my signature projects at the Chicago Botanic Garden is designing and building the hypertufa troughs for the Heritage Garden spring display. While our greenhouse staff spends their winters growing the unique and beautiful plants that we feature in the troughs, another team is hard at work making the troughs.
Since it’s winter, and we’re all stuck looking at leafless plants outside, why not try growing some plants indoors? Better still, why not experiment with your plants to understand them better? In this activity, you will confuse a bean sprout and train it to grow in any direction you want. Sound like fun? You will need: