… The ever-creative Nancy Clifton is putting the finishing touches on her fun and fragrant project. She’s making more than 400 … no-bake “faux dough” made of just two all-natural ingredients, cinnamon and applesauce. Nancy is a horticulture program specialist and popular Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Chicago Botanic Garden teacher. This project is “baking” in name only, as the dough is simply mixed, rolled, and cookie-cut—the ornamental …
Type: Blog
… saving our special discovery for last. I got everyone’s attention and announced, “This is extremely rare! As a butterfly wrangler, I have released many thousands of butterflies, but this is the one and only butterfly that is literally half male and half female!” The visitors were fascinated by the lacewing, which sat …
Type: Blog
… at the Garden, you can find examples of this everywhere. The milkweed in the Dixon Prairie is a favorite meal of the monarch butterfly. In the Bernice E. Lavin Plant Evaluation Garden, … food to all kinds of wildlife like birds, insects, and mammals, having a set of diverse plants is crucial to helping create diverse wildlife for a flourishing ecosystem. Managing our natural areas so they support diverse native plants is a priority of the Garden’s ecologists, who appreciate this important connection between plants …
Type: Blog
… native seeds for the national Seeds of Success (SOS) program this field season. The Garden is an active partner in SOS, led by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, to collect seeds for … Land Management Internship Program also participate in the Seeds of Success program. The goal is to collect 80,000 viable seeds per site, but the devastating heat and drought in the west has made the job especially challenging. …
Type: Blog
… in the winter for shaping, and once in the summer for detail grooming. The design is very uniform and creates a formal allée of trees. The sides are pruned at a slight, almost … more to do! Guillermo Patino, who has been with the Garden for more than 20 years, is the crew leader for this project. He is an expert at maneuvering the large aerial lift in and around all of the trees, as even the …
Type: Blog
… How do carnivorous plants attract pollinators and insects to eat at the same time? This is a complex question. Using different odor cues, color cues, and potentially even distance … challenge. Keep in mind, these plants would fail if they were eating their pollinators. Below is an example of a Sarracenia leucophylla flower used to attract its pollinator, compared to its … from their insect prey, we don’t have to worry about fertilizing. The biggest challenge is keeping the bogs, well, boggy. Rainwater is best, but when there’s no rain in the forecast, we …
Type: Blog
… can get an up-close look at my personal favorite fluttering pollinator, butterflies. While it is easy to be swept away by the magnificent beauty of lepidopteran, it is important to recognize their greater role in this turning and churning machine we call earth. … Butterflies are highly sensitive to changes in their environment, and as they are so large, it is easily noticed if they are absent from an area Zebra Longwing butterfly In all, the value of …
Type: Blog
… ( Hydrastis canadensis )—a once common but now rare plant of Illinois woodlands. Its rarity is attributed to its past popularity as a medicinal plant, which led to its overharvest. Along … further that day, so I made a note of where it was located and planned on returning to the site soon to explore it further. However, I had one question that I needed to answer before this … genetically adapted seeds from a particular area. The raspberry-like fruit of goldenseal is considered inedible, but the roots have many medicinal properties. So here lies the dilemma: …
Type: Blog
… Cathy Thomas is the plant propagator for the Plant Production department. One of her responsibilities is sowing seeds for the annual displays on the Garden's grounds and for plants used in classes and camps. She is especially interested in the complex strategies that plants have developed to prevent the …
Type: Staff bio
… Garden this spring. Its bold blooms draw pollinators in as well as Garden visitors. What is it, you ask? Some of the most unusual plants our Production Greenhouse team grow for our … nursery quonset, with temperatures of 42 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit all winter long. (It is called vernalization, and it is a process by which keeping a plant in colder winter temperatures induces a bloom cycle.) The …
Type: Blog
