… — The Hows and Whys One of winter's many pleasures is seeing a male northern cardinal, decked in bright red plumage, feasting on seeds from your snow-covered feeder. Indeed, one of the main … kinds of food that attract different species. Before you start buying feeders and seeds, keep in mind some basic concepts that will make you and the birds happy: Though birds are intelligent … it's a good idea to keep the feeders filled as much as you can until middle to late spring. In fact, early spring, when last fall's seeds are all gone and the insects haven't yet started to …
Type: Page
… table, mantlepiece or a countertop, flowers make a room festive and inviting. Whether you buy fresh flowers, or receive them as a gift, you can often extend their vase life from three or four days to as much as two weeks. “If you buy cut flowers, the first thing you should do is strip the bottom leaves off the stems,” says … at the Chicago Botanic Garden. “If you don’t, the leaves decay and bacteria will grow in the water.” Bacteria cause the common green film that forms at the bottom of a vase and …
Type: Plant Info
… to improve the quality of your landscape — and, by extension, your life! Planting one tree in the right place is an easy and affordable way to create beauty and improve the quality of life. Trees enhance the landscape in all seasons, including winter, because they provide the “bones” of a landscape design. They … way to enjoy fresh flowers is to grow a cutting garden from seed. For around $20 you can buy a collection of seeds for a summer's worth of flowering annuals that make excellent …
Type: Plant Info
… Europe, Australasia, Asia, southwest China, Tibet, Myanmar, northern India, and New Guinea. In their natural habitats, the plants vary in size from creeping at ground level to 80 feet tall. … mix consists of equal parts of good top soil, peat moss, sand, and shredded bark. A soil test can help determine the pH of your soil before you plant. If the soil acidity is not in the … add elemental sulfur and/or an iron chelate to lower the pH. Find these products and soil test kits at garden centers or online. When the plants are finished flowering, gently pull off …
Type: Plant Info
… tree, which is usually multistemmed, are wide-spreading. The saucer magnolia is enshrouded in flowers in late March to early April, when flowers open that are white to pinkish-purple and 5-10" across … that do thrive here are often subject to damage from cold spring nights. The genus includes of 300 species and numerous hybrids and cultivars. The Chicago Botanic Garden's collection includes …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… visit Hill Top Farm, Potter’s home, after finding a photo of children reading by the fireplace in a National Geographic my parents had. Picturesque Hill Top Farm was purchased by Beatrix Potter in 1905 with proceeds from the sale of her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit . Photo by … . She shares her first name with her mother, Helen Leech Potter, who was also interested in drawing and painting—common pastimes for upper-middle-class Victorian women. Beatrix used a …
Type: Blog
… You may have noticed more garlic mustard in your garden, yard, or alley this year. The ecologists who tend to the Chicago Botanic Garden’s natural areas have, too. We had not seen much garlic mustard in our natural areas in recent years, and its reemergence is a reminder for all of us that controlling and managing …
Type: Blog
… the last. This has made the “aquatic” areas fascinating to maintain and a great environment to test shoreline management strategies with use of native plantings and integrative pest management techniques. I’m also interested in the use and promotion of native species in urban landscapes. Growing up in Chicago I relished the time being in parks and found it …
Type: Staff bio
… with similar climatic conditions. The herbaceous plants under evaluation are grown outdoors in side-by-side trials for a minimum of four years; vines and shrubs are evaluated for a minimum … their ornamental traits; cultural adaptability to the soil and environmental conditions of the test site; disease and pest problems; and winter injury. Twenty comparative trials are currently underway, including trials in the Shida Evaluation Garden featuring abelias ( Abelia ), bugleweeds ( Ajuga ), goatsbeards ( …
Type: Staff bio
… There are things I look forward to seeing every season. In spring, I watch for “mighty plants” that emerge from the ground with enough force to heave the … around me inspires lots of questions. I want to understand how this is possible and I want to test their strength. So I spent a few weeks playing around with this phenomenon in the Learning … and conclusions after they think they have made a discovery. They use the experiment to test their discovery and provide convincing evidence to support it. In some cases, the experiment …
Type: Blog
