… a paper grocery bag or use newspaper to spread out on a table. This creates a clear work space for your child and makes clean up a breeze. 2. Grab a small pail to make the mud in. Let your … it in a sunny spot to dry. Parent Tip: Remember to have some damp towels or wipes nearby for messy hands. Mud Kitchen Give up one area of your yard to be that mud kitchen area. We know … or even recyclables. Mud Painting No paint? Try mud! It’s fun and a great sensory experience for kids. Here’s what you’ll need: Dirt Disposable bowl Flour Water Any type of paper …
Type: Blog
… back approximately 600 years. Originally, men and women arranged flowers as Buddhist offerings for altars at temples. Since then, ikebana has established itself as an art form beyond religious … style, the arranger is invited to remain silent. The silence creates a meditative space for the artist to connect with and appreciate nature more closely. For ikebana floral designer and Garden volunteer Shelley Galloway, the connection between nature …
Type: Blog
… spring, I was traveling through the McDonald Woods at the Chicago Botanic Garden, searching for some of the flat-bodied crab spiders ( Philodromus ) that typically spend the winter in … with wings. When I was in college studying mammology, we used to go out at night and look for streetlights where there were large numbers of moths and other flying insects attracted to … I don’t know if the bat was aware of it, but this dead branch provided the perfect camouflage for her rich color. This made me think about how these mammals perceive the world. Do bats have …
Type: Blog
… and other fruit ripening in your kitchen, because it can attract fruit flies. Leave it there for three to five days, depending on the conditions. Natural “beasties” in the air (yeast) will … head of gunk on your seeds, remove that film and throw it away. (Unless you’d like to keep it for some reason.) If you can’t skim all of it, no worries, the remaining goo will rinse off in … look right. They are not viable. Let the seeds air dry on the wax paper in a protected place for about a week. 6. Store the completely dried seeds in an envelope until you are ready to use …
Type: Blog
… is the date we put Spike on public view!) . Several weeks later, Beccari saw a flowering plant for the first time. He sent a few tubers and seeds to Florence, Italy, but the tubers all … Kew, in England. There, in 1889, 11 years after its discovery, a titan arum plant flowered for the first time outside its tropical home. No one knows how common the titan arum is in the … known habitat is the rainforest of Sumatra, which is being steadily eroded by deforestation for palm oil production, by pollution, and by human encroachment. The corms are also being dug up …
Type: Blog
… and bring focus to your pictures. The most important thing to keep in mind when photographing for Instagram is that your photo will be viewed at a relatively small scale. Your composition … that has very small details in a context. A close-up of these penstemon flowers alone makes for a very chaotic image, but when the surrounding landscape is included, the flowers form a … take pictures during the morning and evening when the light is softer. Choose a point of view for your subject where light falls on the subject but not the background. This will emphasize the …
Type: Blog
… A lot of thought and work are put into raising bonsai trees and pruning them just so, but for many bonsai artists, their containers are just as important as the plant itself. “The pot and … and functional too,” said Chris Baker, curator of bonsai at the Chicago Botanic Garden. For all gardeners, proper drainage, size, and a suitable material are important considerations. … of the tree. Junipers prefer a well-draining soil, so this shallow container is not a problem for it, though more frequent watering is needed to care for the tree.” A raintree slab in the …
Type: Blog
… been all about change, and acceptance of how the COVID-19 health crisis affects how we care for the Garden—and how the Garden will look when we are able to reopen. Only essential staff is … and preserved—they’re not wild. They contain valuable genetic material important as a resource for restoring extant prairies and oak savannas, breeding new plants, and protecting the … collections, in which manipulating plants through timely pruning is assumed and is essential for maintaining the design intent. Roses need proper pruning to provide the best display of …
Type: Blog
… and Early Cretaceous age rocks from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China, are the source for a remarkable diversity of fossil plants and animals. The Early Cretaceous of Mongolia in particular is well known for its fossil dinosaurs and other vertebrates, but fossil plants from Mongolia are very poorly … from two different modes of preservation to maximize our knowledge of structural details for these plants and to provide more detailed reconstructions of “whole fossil plants.” We are …
Type: Staff bio
… Poland, to spend the summer with relatives. My grandparents’ farm was the home base for my adventures with cousins and siblings. We spent hours in the breezy northern hills, picking … at the grocery store. This strawberry is Fragaria × ananassa , which has only been around for about 260 years, and has undergone a lot of breeding in that time. Fragaria × ananassa is … by Philip Miller, a famous English horticulturist. He referred to it as the “pine strawberry” for its taste, which was similar to pineapple. If you’re taken aback by this assessment of …
Type: Blog
