… our gardens during the great fall migration. Among these fascinating and colorful creatures is the ruby-throated hummingbird, which travels through the Chicago area in great numbers during … there are as many as 25 species of hummingbirds in the United States, the ruby-throated is the only hummingbird regularly found east of the Mississippi River. During the summer, they … previous fall—quite an accomplishment—and was back in the spring for more. Now’s the time to get those feeders out so that the same birds may visit your garden next spring. Hummingbird …
Type: Plant Info
… Halloween [Night of 1,000 Jack-o’-Lanterns]. It gets bigger and better every year. [The Garden is] just a wonderful space without intrusions to enjoy the beauty of nature.” –June Hamer … of our members for helping us protect and celebrate the natural world since 1972. Our future is bright because of them. Some of the Garden’s 50-year members gathered in August 2022 for a …
Type: Blog
… bulbs that provide clumps of delicate flowers—and not just in May, but in February. Yes, now is the time to start planning and planting for an uplifting display of blooms—the early … white and green flowers are among the first to pop out of the ground in winter. Choose a site that gets about six hours of sun and has well-drained soil. Low areas that collect water in … brown. The leaves produce food that will carry the bulbs through the winter. Nina Koziol is a garden writer and horticulturist who lives and gardens in Palos Park, Illinois. …
Type: Plant Info
… find are petals scattered on the ground, and you realize you have to wait another year. This is particularly true of species like bloodroot ( Sanguinaria canadensis ), whose blossoms only last for a day before they drop. Additionally frustrating is that cloud cover can hamper catching the full glory of the blooming of some species. You may … by planting the entire community of plants together at the same time. It will be easier to get the many species growing together. The healthy competition and relationships among plants are …
Type: Plant Info
… supervisor of plant health care, said an insulating blanket of snow on the ground helps. Snow is a good insulator for plants that are exposed to extreme cold temperatures, so any plants that … can sometime fool plants into acting as if spring has arrived. If, after a polar vortex, we get a mid- or late winter warm up that lasts more than a few days, some plants could be tricked … breaking dormancy and start sending water to their buds; the buds will swell. Those buds could get damaged by more cold temperatures that are sure to come. We need winter to stay winter for …
Type: Blog
… Wall at the Grunsfeld Children’s Growing Garden. That leaves us with four empty walls. So we get creative and make an “alternative” living wall. These burlap pocket planters contain … and v oila! We had a vertical garden again. You can do this at home. Making planting pockets is simple and fun. 1. Plant seeds or transplant small plants and let them sprout. We … 4. Turn the triangle inside out to form the pocket. Slip the planted pot into the pocket and get ready to hang it on a wall. The seam side of the pocket is the back, and the pointed front …
Type: Blog
… nobody has really looked there before. Camping on the Mongolian steppe. it doesn’t get any better than this! A little background first. Mongolia is a large country in Central Asia with a population very close in size to the city of Chicago … to the south. The Gobi Desert is shared by Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Looking for the fossil site It might look like central Montana, but those aren’t buffalo! My trip to Mongolia in late …
Type: Blog
… Horticulturist Tom Soulsby uses small, visually interesting plants that would otherwise get lost in a mass planting in the Garden. People look forward to these 41 containers each spring, which is something Soulsby keeps in mind when he’s planting them. By the time April rolls around, … after months of dreary gray, so he “overplants” the troughs to make them look full from the get-go. Poking through the red, orange, and yellow flowers this year is an unusual, edible treat: …
Type: Blog
… thistle ( Cirsium arvense ) and the bull thistle ( Cirsium vulgare ). The Canada thistle is a perennial plant commonly found in disturbed ground, like farm fields, roadsides, and … thistle Cirsium discolor Pasture thistle Image By Fritz Flohr Reynolds - https://www.flickr.com/photos/fritzflohrreynolds/15143788606, CC BY-SA 2.0, … to feeding on the seeds of native thistles and the impact of this is being investigated. To get a good look at some of our native thistles, travel to the Barbara Brown Nature Reserve at the …
Type: Plant Info
… days click on, and we are led farther away from the beloved fall season. The days continue to get shorter, and the sun doesn’t seem to shine quite as bright so naturally; moods shift, and … it all: lackluster moods, low energy, and even mild depression. Seasonal Affective Disorder is defined as depression associated with late autumn and winter, thought to be caused by a lack … activity is our ‘ Holiday Greens Ornament ’ project. For this activity, participants get the opportunity to create a beautiful ornament out of fresh, seasonal greens. When I bring …
Type: Blog
