… As a mom and working artist, I try to think of ways I can introduce my 3-year-old daughter to the outdoors and the power of imagination through craft projects. And as an employee at the … for kids and families that celebrate the outdoors. What’s fun about nature art is that it starts with an adventure and ends with a surprise. For instance, the “family of owls” …
Type: Blog
… Step past the sleepy stone lion, breathe in the cowslip primrose, and listen to the water trickle into an eighteenth-century lead cistern—the feeling is as timeless as the tiny thyme plants growing between the hand-pressed bricks. So how do we … Helen and Richard Thomas English Walled Garden withstands the rigors of time? Work is underway to enhance the English Walled Garden’s magestical tapestry. Dedicated in 1991 by Princess …
Type: Blog
… the Forest Preserves of Cook County, including a stint at the Garden. The Conservation Corps is a paid summer internship that gives young people hands-on conservation and environmental science experience. Students partnered with Garden horticulturists and learned to identify plants and remove invasive species. This year, they worked to clear and trim overgrown bushes, install new plantings, and remove invasive plants. In …
Type: Blog
… resolutions—whether at the Chicago Botanic Garden, or in their own backyard. Feel free to snag one of their ideas for yourself. Heather Sherwood, senior horticulturist, Helen and Richard Thomas English Walled Garden Some of my New Year’s resolutions are to clean and sharpen my tools, start a compost pile with my kitchen scraps, pet more bumblebees, … Pogue, senior horticulturist, Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden My New Year’s resolution is to apply the principles of the Garden's soil initiative. I am very excited to learn more about …
Type: Blog
… Gabriela Rocha Alvarez is the plant recorder at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Gabriela started working at the Garden as a … Management scouting program that assisted Production staff in decision-making. She was hired to be the labeling coordinator, a job she did for a decade, where she established protocols and … and monitored the technical and financial aspects of the projects; she performed technical on-site verification, conducted interviews with scientists, researchers, farmers, suppliers, …
Type: Staff bio
… Cathy Thomas is the plant propagator for the Plant Production department. One of her responsibilities is … and camps. She is especially interested in the complex strategies that plants have developed to prevent the germination of their seeds until conditions are favorable for the seedlings' survival. In her work, she researches and tests different techniques to break these germination inhibitors present in the seeds of native plants grown for restoration …
Type: Staff bio
… My top pick for cool new plant species? The media has called it grotesque and compared to an eyeless worm. And our friends at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London described it as “the ugliest orchid in the world.” The not-so-pretty Gastrodia agnicellus orchid is just one of the new discoveries and developments I’ve tracked recently, as curator of the … and collector of orchids, I still geek out when researchers stumble on a species unknown to science. Here are five of my favorite recent news stories on orchids: Gastrodia agnicellus , …
Type: Blog
… We love nature here at the Chicago Botanic Garden, so we looked to the natural world for inspiration on how to enjoy the eclipse— here at the Garden , or in your own backyard. On Monday, August 21, 2017, … projector—using leaves. Rule number one with eclipses—and with the sun every day, actually—is don’t look directly at it with the naked eye . A fun way to indirectly “see” the eclipse is …
Type: Blog
… kid.) The ink in my pen froze and I couldn’t take notes. We spent a lot of time standing still to observe birds, twigs, moss, ice crystals, and seed heads while the wind sent bone-chilling blasts through my clothes. It was so cold that it was hard to concentrate on what the instructor was saying. The very next day, I bought insulated boots, … [insulated] jeans.” She’ll pull on a tank top and place two long-sleeved tops over it. “One is thermal and tight—the other is a Garden work shirt. Next, my work hoodie and my [insulated] …
Type: Blog
… as some of us in the Second City affectionately call it: Second Winter—can test our ability to feel connected to anything living, including each other and ourselves. When we are stuck inside, our mental … Flower Mandala Sun Catchers Loosely translated from Sanskrit to mean “circle,” a mandala is a symbol that represents wholeness and reminds us of the connectivity of all things in the …
Type: Blog
