… Add a little brightness to your family's day—play with food, make rainbow dough—and get in some nature play, too. Ready to turn ☹️ into☺? Nature Rainbow Scavenger Hunt Lace up your … preserve, or go off the grid. See if you can find something that was not made by a human in every shade of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. It's extra … you just have to look a little harder to find your gallery of gratitude.. Coloring in the Kitchen Hey, kids, here are three recipes that make playing with your food even more fun! …
Type: Blog
… There comes a time in every plant parent’s life when you begin to think about expanding your family. Are you ready … need a whole stem—you can just cut off a part of the leaf as your cutting. 2. Dip the cutting in rooting powder or gel Rooting solution makes roots grow more quickly and uniform, said Thomas. You can find rooting powder or gel at most garden centers. 3. Put the cutting in a mix of potting mix and perlite Although some cuttings can root in water, Thomas said plants …
Type: Blog
… to identify different kinds of evergreens by their needles and cones. It’s a lesson in sorting and classifying plants—in other words: taxonomy. Conifer vs. Evergreen Every year we remind students of the meanings of … therefore is not an evergreen, is the bald cypress. These can be very attractive when covered in snow. (The bald cypress trees growing in the Heritage Garden have been pruned at the top and …
Type: Blog
… like to pay tribute to someone special or mark a special occasion, they can dedicate a book in the library in the same way that they might dedicate a tree or a bench in other Garden areas.” Later that summer, my mom passed away. As my thoughts eventually turned …
Type: Blog
… the garden along the Garden Wall and Berm has been a learning experience. The Garden section in question, located by the big Edens Expressway (northbound lanes) sign. Originally, the design … Botanic Garden sign—included Tatarian aster ( Aster tataricus ‘Jindai’), which stands tall in the fall and produces clouds of small lavender-blue flowers well into late October and even … produce a forest of these plants. Unfortunately, they soon encompassed pretty much everything in their path. Even the hearty feather reed grass ( Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’) …
Type: Blog
… characteristics, including blooms that are amazingly complex. Milkweeds are found mostly in open prairies and savannas and are known to most by their fruits, which are pod-like … prairies, and swamp milkweed (A. incarnata) , which is the only species we have that grows in marshes. You are not likely to see the other 11 species that occur in the Chicago area because some are so rare that they have been designated as endangered species …
Type: Blog
… is synonymous with the word “bee,” but only a fraction of plants are pollinated by bees. In fact, many different insects and mammals are pollinators—bats, birds, beetles, moths, and … group of moths: the Sphingidae, or hawkmoths, which pollinate more than 106 plant species in North America alone, and many more around the world. A newly emerged Hyles lineata hawkmoth I am a research tech in the Skogen lab. I work with Krissa Skogen , Ph.D., her postdocs Tania Jogesh and Rick …
Type: Blog
… complex mechanisms for both receiving and sending UV light, and they use these amazing gifts in a variety of clever ways. One well-known phenomenon is the relationship between butterflies and nectar-producing flowers. Thanks to special photoreceptors in their huge compound eyes, butterflies can detect ultraviolet light. Many flowers have evolved … ultraviolet patterning that helps lead the butterflies directly to their nectaries, resulting in a mutually beneficial exchange—nectar for the butterfly, pollination for the flower. These …
Type: Blog
… soon—we’ve got plenty of benches throughout our 385-acre grounds, some of them tucked away in secluded areas and others more public. We asked Leora Siegel, senior director of the Lenhardt … Walled Garden The Victorian Garden By Caroline Ikin You’ll see the influence of gardens in Victorian Britain in the English Walled Garden. This book brings that era to life and tracks the rise of suburban …
Type: Blog
… Look up! In partnership with Friends of the Chicago River ( FOCR ) and the Forest Preserves of Cook County … of the Chicago Botanic Garden near Dundee Road. The osprey is listed as an endangered species in Illinois, which means it’s at risk of disappearing as a breeding species. Fish-eating raptors … United States to South America, osprey are often seen during their migrations—yet few remain in Illinois to nest. The lack of suitable nesting structures has been identified as a limiting …
Type: Blog
