… Take a peek in your closet, and you might find a long wooden broom for sweeping up dust or offering rides to witches and wizards. For broom maker John Spannagel of Hidalgo, Illinois, brooms are more than … love, made with a special ingredient: broomcorn. Broomcorn is a type of ornamental grass used to make specialty brooms, a passion Spannagel discovered nearly three years ago. The retired …
Type: Blog
… a fair bit of brewing myself. Despite seemingly endless beer varieties, beer making boils down to just a few basic ingredients. So what’s really happening during the major steps in the brewing … base in beer and scotch. Photo via Finlay McWalter, Wikimedia Commons. GFDL A beautiful vine for the home garden is hops ( Humulus lupulus ), pictured here in flower. Pollinated and fruited … carbohydrates will feed the yeasts during fermentation. The brewer doesn’t want the grain seed to completely germinate, though—if it did, the embryo would “eat” all of the food reserves, …
Type: Blog
… Chicago Botanic Garden. Or in the intimate spaces of our Thomas English Walled Garden . Want to experience a sense of the show’s dreamy romance? Inside the English Walled Garden, past the … hand-pressed brick walls, you’ll feel like you’re stepping back in time—maybe, in fact, back to the Regency period, when most of Bridgerton (along with the Jane Austen novels) takes place. … or passionflower. On Bridgerton , masses of lush wisteria are twining everywhere—a metaphor for all of the romantic entanglements? Artistic license? No judgments. But alas, senior …
Type: Blog
… Allison Pillar is the grower for indoor floriculture in the Plant Production department. She produces high-quality plants for … since worked as a seasonal and assistant grower within the department before being promoted to her current position in 2020. Her interest in nature and plants led her to graduate from Macalester College with a bachelor’s degree in biology, where she also worked on …
Type: Staff bio
… For Earth Day this year, take some time to appreciate the rich soil that covers our planet and supports plant life. Try this soil seed-bank test to discover the magic of topsoil. The soil seed-bank test is used by farmers, scientists, and …
Type: Blog
… employee in 1980. He grew up on a farm near Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico, where he learned how to operate equipment and take care of plants. Within a few months, Melecio was promoted to foreman; then a few years later, he became Grounds supervisor. Melecio supervises four regular employees and 43 seasonal employees, and is responsible for general grounds maintenance, major event support (set up and tear down), and the landscape …
Type: Staff bio
… which includes nursery and greenhouse operations. He works with a talented team of growers to produce a complex and diverse range of plants for the Garden's programs, collections, and displays. Clark has been with the Garden since 1979, … He started as a grower in the greenhouses, became plant propagator, and ultimately moved on to manage the department. He has been instrumental in the planning and implementation of the new …
Type: Staff bio
… as in life, patience is a virtue. Twelve years ago, the Garden embarked on a mission to bring a rock star of the plant world to the Chicago Botanic Garden. The titan arum ( Amorphophallus titanum ), also known as the … size, odd shape, and terrible stench (hence its common name, corpse flower). Plants bloom for a single day every seven to ten years, and it is nearly impossible to predict the day it will …
Type: Blog
… A striking century plant is putting on a show in the final stages of its life—it’s blooming for the first and only time in 27 years. The succulent sends up a tall stalk of blossoms right … at the Chicago Botanic Garden, Agave ocahui is known as the century plant because people used to think it flowered only once every 100 years. A more accurate estimate is that it blooms once after 25 to 30 years of growth. The Garden’s century plant came from The Huntington Library, Art …
Type: Blog
… Sensory Garden Circle Garden Lakeside Gardens Heather Sherwood is the senior horticulturist for the Helen and Richard Thomas English Walled Garden. She also is responsible for the West Flower Walk, McGinley Pavilion, Runnells Courtyard, and Searle Courtyard; she … 2000, when she started out as a grower for the Plant Production department. She was promoted to supervisor of specialty areas in 2003 and then moved into her current position in 2005. …
Type: Staff bio
