… Flowers Zinnias are a mainstay of the summer garden offering a very long season of bloom. One common name, “Youth and Old Age,” refers to plants that sport young flower buds as well as …
Type: Plant Info
… Grown in the warmer parts of USDA zone 5 to 8, it is the most fragrant of them all. It is one of the earliest plants to flower in Illinois, with a profusion of slightly larger, yellow …
Type: Plant Info
… Another kind of syrphid fly This syrphid fly is a little bigger and fuzzier than the previous one. It could easily be mistaken for a bee. 8. Mystery fly, possibly another syrphid I was having … also called the blowfly family, and they were also represented on our eryngo plant. One view of this green bottle fly (genus Phormica ) shows its iridescent green body. The same … so seeing this predator around the eryngo makes sense. I could not get a good picture of this one, because it was hiding in the shadows under the flowers. The wing pattern suggests some kind …
Type: Blog
… a damp paper towel; label the plates. Treat the seeds the same way in every respect except for one thing: the condition you are testing. That condition is your "independent variable," which may also be called the "experimental variable." No matter what you are testing, one plate should be set up with the basic directions and no treatment. That plate is the … 1. Do seeds need light to germinate? Place your plates of seeds in different light conditions: one in no light (maybe in a dark room or a under a box), one in indirect/medium light (in a …
Type: Blog
… One of the most recognized lines from Shakespeare is the following: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” You would have to read Hamlet to get the backstory, but one thing I know as an ecologist, is that we would be in a lot of trouble if there wasn’t a whole … through the woods the other day, I tripped over a downed log and came face-to-face with one member of those decomposers, the bracket fungi. These familiar fungi, also known as shelf …
Type: Blog
… a closer look at the topography and you can still make out the origins of all that beauty. “One designs not places, or spaces or things—one designs experiences.” John O. Simonds, Landscape Architect The Garden was established on land … Perfect Brightness] to the west of Peking,” Simonds wrote. The Garden of Perfect Brightness is one of China’s most iconic monuments, built in stages starting in the early 18th century as a …
Type: Blog
… Of all the summer evening sights at the Chicago Botanic Garden, only one can compete with the flowers: the brides. Beautiful in their gowns, stepping delicately into … of America love to tell the story of the groom-to-be who worked closely with them on a one-of-a-kind, finely-timed marriage proposal. Strolling leisurely through the Model Railroad … down to the flower-bedecked gondola car that bore an engagement ring in a box, and dropped to one knee to ask for his lady’s hand. She said yes. 2005: Where to Hide a Ring in Spring She said …
Type: Blog
… We get a lot of questions about one particular plant in the Grunsfeld Children’s Growing Garden: Naranjilla (pronounced nahr-ahn- … the naranjillas in this small garden bed, number 10, were put there for a reason. All but one of the plants in this bed are in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. This family includes … fused so that they look like a funnel with five lobes. You’ll easily be able to pick out the one plant that does not belong in the family. See how this ‘Pink Dreams Fuseable’ petunia ( …
Type: Blog
… We gathered around a table at the Garden View Café the other day to taste something that only one of us had ever tasted before: powdered orchid roots. A traditional winter drink in the cafés … boiling milk. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Serve in small cups. Our lesson in salep came from the one person who had not only tasted salep before but had grown up drinking it—horticulturist Ayse … it—Ayse explains that gum arabic, made from the sap of the acacia tree, is also an ingredient, one more familiar to eastern palates than western. And what is served with salep? “Good …
Type: Blog
… . Say hello the old-school way How much does it cost to mail a postcard? Our point exactly. No one knows anymore. Here’s an easy way to send a postcard that will cost you….35 cents for a U.S. postage stamp—download one of our Lenhardt Library's historic garden images and print it on cardstock. Home, sweet home … to make a necklace . Pretty up your dining room table Just in time for Thanksgiving, create a one-of-a-kind seasonal centerpiece featuring local flowers—and figs. Beginners are welcome in …
Type: Blog
