Search

  • … Winter is a great season for bookworms—there’s nothing like a good book to keep you company during the … far as stories go, the Rare Book Collection at the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Lenhardt Library is a true treat. The Lenhardt Library acquired its Rare Book Collection from the Massachusetts … the Rare Book Collection—no easy feat. Below are her picks, in no particular order; each book is uniquely beautiful and impactful.     The Illustrated Language of Flowers by Anna Christian …
    Type: Blog
  • … FO-76 has left our staff scratching their heads. “We’re not actually sure what species it is,” Sarah said. Her guess is Agave oteroi , a species that was only characterized six years ago. Conservation scientist … them preserve wild species of agave and their native deserts. A cycle worth preserving Agave is a “keystone species” for humans, a source of food and drink for Indigenous Mexicans for …
    Type: Blog
  • … Terese Adamiec is the grower for outdoor floriculture in the Plant Production department. She focuses on growing …
    Type: Staff bio
  • … after wild populations of the species were last seen in Illinois. The bloom this past spring is a small but striking sign of recovery. Its presence is thanks to the Chicago Botanic Garden and conservation partners who set out to test whether an … decades. It couldn’t have survived Big Marsh’s original wetland, but slag had transformed the site into something resembling the daisy’s almost nonexistent native habitat. This was a rare …
    Type: Blog
  • … them an interesting part of a garden design. The least expensive way to create a raised bed is to simply mark the area (use orange landscape spray paint, or stakes and twine, or hoses or … flanking paths. You can also add pulverized topsoil and compost to raise the bed if your soil is mostly clay. Animal troughs—the real thing from farm supply stores—or a do-it-yourself small … bed, some gardeners turn to Hugelkultur. It’s German for “hill mound” or “mound culture” and is a long-time practice of using buried twigs, branches, and organic matter to create the base of …
    Type: Plant Info
  • … wetland, then owned by the Forest Preserves of Cook County. The Chicago Botanic Garden is built upon this history. For more than a year, the Chicago Botanic Garden has been working on … while adopting the Land Acknowledgment of the Forest Preserves of Cook County. Our goal is to create a garden where all are welcomed, respected, and honored in their full humanity. Our Commitment to Indigenous Communities is a first step. …
    Type: Blog
  • … Brian Clark is the manager of Plant Production, which includes nursery and greenhouse operations. He works …
    Type: Staff bio
  • … Helen Bartlett is the horticulturist for Evening Island, which was designed in the New American Garden style of …
    Type: Staff bio
  • … happiness when Lady Edith named the baby Marigold. Speaking of England, behind today’s trend is an even earlier, Victorian-era trend rooted in the language of flowers. This is a topic near and dear to the Garden’s heart, as an amazing gift of 400 books related to the  …
    Type: Blog
  • … many gardeners and scientists alike have long assumed their flower type to be one that is strikingly red, tubular, and scentless. Flowers that are often thought of as typical choices … clear-cut categories (known as pollination syndromes), these human constructs may mask what is really going on in nature. Many “typical” hummingbird flowers belong to species that produce … have acute color vision and show no innate preference for the color red—in other words, there is no reason for them to exclusively focus on red or orange flowers. And their long and slender …
    Type: Blog