… Even when snow is falling and temperatures plummet, I’m working on my backyard vegetable garden. I might not be … planning, you can harvest something from your garden from April through October. The trick is to gather what you need now and start dreaming so you can get a jump on things as soon as the … says Lisa Hilgenberg, horticulturist, Regenstein Fruit & Vegetable Garden. Now is the time to start a garden journal—make lists of projects you want to do such as pruning trees, dividing …
Type: Blog
… flower. The corm of an Amorphophallus titanum : after a dozen or so years, it’s large enough to produce a bloom! Spike just keeps on growing at the Semitropical Greenhouse, and visitors are … about the coming bloom from the docents posted there, one of the most frequently ask questions is, “How could you tell this time that Spike was a flower?” How could we tell that Spike was going to be a flower? It’s tricky. Even the most experienced botanists have a hard time determining …
Type: Blog
… at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Following the illuminated trail, perhaps you stood to admire the distant and beautiful Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden. You likely saw a … in the lake, and if you looked closely, you might have noticed that there’s actually no way to get to that island. Did you wonder why that is? Horaijima, or the Island of Everlasting Happiness, represents paradise—a place inaccessible …
Type: Blog
… awe walk , when I’m looking for unexpected beauty, those bits of color bring my attention to the bigger world around me. My work with Budburst , the Chicago Botanic Garden’s community … science project, has made me appreciate these moments even more. Budburst encourages everyone to observe and record how plants change with the seasons. The spots of green usually come from … exposed branch structure of a deciduous tree, naked of its leaves. The ingenuity of leaf loss is protection, preventing branches from bearing too much weight and breaking when it snows. All I …
Type: Blog
… No rain, then too much rain, then...this is a challenging year for gardening. For those who garden in northeastern Illinois, Here are some tips to keep your garden in shape this summer: What do all of these moisture fluctuations mean for … roots extract nutrients from the soil. One of the most important things a gardener can do to address both of these extremes is to routinely add organic matter to planting beds. This helps …
Type: Blog
… The flowers are gone, the trees are bare, now what to photograph? Birds, of course! Winter is a great time to get some fabulous shots of winter birds. One huge bonus is that there are no leaves on the …
Type: Blog
… all researched best practices for digital libraries and made recommendations for improvement to the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). BHL is a group of natural history and botanical libraries that work together to digitize books and articles about biodiversity and make them freely available to access and …
Type: Blog
… My daughters love fresh grapefruit—and birds. So we decided to keep the rind and make a bird feeder. This is a fun, easy project. The grapefruit sections have been cut and eaten; the rind is ready to become our bird feeder. To make a grapefruit bird feeder, you will need the following: Half a …
Type: Blog
… in a facility or at a personal home, particular symptoms of decreased quality of life begin to show during these stages. These symptoms are often displayed in the form of boredom, … Fortunately, many, if not all of these symptoms can be improved with gardening and exposure to outdoor spaces. A senior engages with colorful and inviting roses at Elm Tree Gardens in … (circuit and materials), and seating. The entrance/exit to an outdoor space—the threshold—is perhaps the most important factor to consider when designing an outdoor space for the elderly, …
Type: Blog
… After severe winter weather, gardeners face bigger challenges than usual in the spring, due to a “perfect storm” of weather conditions that scorch evergreens, protect plant predators, … slow-growing, this boxwood ( Buxus microphylla ) should make a full recovery. The bad news is that more plant damage is likely to appear once the weather is consistently warm, though many plants will recover from the long, …
Type: Blog
