… who fills homemade bird feeders with thistle in the Enabling Garden, Garden visitors can get close views of a northern bird species called the pine siskin. Gregarious little birds, pine … in about 13 days. Pine siskins could very well be on nests in Illinois in March! While winter is here, enjoy watching the antics of the siskins and their more common counterpart, the American …
Type: Birding
… “Visitors love them, and they have become our fall trademark each year,” he said. Pro tip: Get to the Garden early and take a selfie under the hayracks on the bridge leading toward the … in Japan. All told, we grew 6,965 mums for this year’s fall display; the bridge display is the most labor intensive. Mums in waiting, grown for fall displays Mums in autumn hues In …
Type: Blog
… winter, the males look a lot like the drab-olive females. But come spring, the male begins to get blotches of yellow on his body until he finally molts into his golden spring and summer … uses thistle down, which isn't available until midsummer, to construct its nest. Thistle down is a soft, feathery material that protects the fruiting part of a thistle plant. Many varieties … wings and give high-pitched sounds to attract their parents' attention. The American goldfinch is a true acrobat when it comes to feeding. Watch as it flies to a thistle, clings to the stalks …
Type: Birding
… arrive at the Roberti Community House in nearby Waukegan. From grower to giver, this lifeline is set in motion each Wednesday to help feed the neediest families. “Many of our families are … to paycheck and fresh foods, fruits, and vegetables isn’t something they can afford or that is regularly available at a food pantry or soup kitchen,” said Maribeth Roberti, who founded the … added, “being able to rely upon the high-quality produce from the Garden is something we all get excited about.” This year, all produce grown at the Chicago Botanic Garden, which is roughly …
Type: Blog
… taken a toll, and in 2020, a wildfire in the eastern Mojave Desert destroyed about 1.3 million Joshua trees. Sometimes it can be hard to stay optimistic for the future of Joshua … as straight of lines as possible. We’ve learned that the straighter the lines, the easier it is to monitor the plots. With a team of about a dozen people, we planted seedlings using noisy … Joshua trees will be saved. Maddy: It takes good ol’-fashioned manual labor and teamwork to get a big project done! Working side by side in the soil and getting to talk about life and our …
Type: Blog
… Soulsby shares tips on plant selection and working within a container’s constraints. Tip 1: Work with the proportions of the space. In the low-to-the-ground containers, no plant is taller than 12 inches, and most are in the 3- to 6-inch range. Keep heights low, but allow for … small in this mix, with tulips as the largest in the bunch. Diminutive flowers—nemesia, bacopa—get their moment in the sun, and don’t disappear when they’re in the company of other …
Type: Plant Info
… Annual cicada Insect fascination is never ending. Here are five activities you can do this summer to extend the enchantment. 1. Annual cicadas. The annual species are with us all summer. Be an insect investigator. Find an … plaster cicadas that celebrate our fascination with all things cicada. If you really cannot get enough entomology (the study of insects) I highly recommend visiting the Insect Asylum in …
Type: Blog
… hate, focusing on the top ten weeds most commonly found in gardens in the Chicago area. What is a weed? Essentially, it’s a plant that’s growing where you don’t want it to be. Weeds are … garden plants to have. Cultivate a love of weeding—smart gardeners know it’s worth it.  #1: Bindweed  Convolvulus arvensis Every gardener knows the horror of bindweed: the perennial, … a thick mat and an extensive root system that overwhelms any garden bed—or even farm field. Get familiar with bindweed’s arrow-shaped leaf and search for the first tendrils at ground level …
Type: Plant Info
… Director, Windy City Harvest             Click here to show mail address  Britt Calendo is the program director for Windy City Harvest. In this role she oversees our Apprenticeship, … produce program from 2018 to 2021. Calendo has a master’s degree in social work and is excited about combining her background in social work and public health with sustainable urban … with Windy City Harvest in 2021, when he began as a grower for the Washington Park farm site. He went on to work with a program alumni farmer, Chicago Urban Farm Solutions, before …
Type: Page
… developed for people’s gardens. My favorite, sweet black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa) , is a native species of moist to wet prairies and woodland edges. Although the flowers are very similar, the familiar common black-eyed Susan is a short (about 1 – 2 feet), often annual or biennial with simple leaves, whereas sweet black-eyed Susan is a … or ray) of an individual flower called a ray or ligulate flower. I know this is hard to get your head around, since the entire heads of many tiny flowers are arranged in a way that …
Type: Plant Info
