… Care Department Landscape Waste Program As manager of horticulture services, Cindy Baker is responsible for the care and maintenance of more than 100 acres of ornamental landscaping. She also manages the Grounds department, the Plant Health Care department, and the Landscape Waste Program, supervising a staff of ten permanent and 43 seasonal workers. …
Type: Staff bio
… Long-ago legend says that cranes can live for 1,000 years…and that folding 1,000 paper cranes, one for each year, can make a wish come true. So it is that the crane is the symbol of longevity and good fortune. Fast forward to the turn of the twenty-first century, when Ray Wilke, a devoted …
Type: Blog
… are not. They’re hard at work during snowy winters, thinking about all the new plants and planning for the New Year. We asked a few horticulturists for their gardening … 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 … 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
… species of moths in the state of Illinois—more than ten times the diversity of butterflies—it is a real adventure sampling the moth species inhabiting the McDonald Woods at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Using a combination of light and bait traps along with visual searches, I have been investigating the diversity of moth … species found in the restored portions of our oak woodland. Moths are removed from the traps and then photographed before being released back to the woodland. The metallic scales of the …
Type: Blog
… You might have noticed a group of hard-working high-schoolers wearing hard hats and toting shovels at the Chicago Botanic Garden this summer. The aspiring conservationists—part … 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 …
Type: Blog
… Post-storm, the lovers ran off—Venus, minus one slipper. A mortal human came across the shoe and reached down to pick it up, when suddenly and magically it transformed into a flower with a slipper-shaped petal of gold. Cypripedium … a lot of meaning into that name: Cyprus was the sacred island of Venus’s birth, pedilon is the word for slipper, and calceolus means little shoe. The lady’s slipper orchid is native …
Type: Blog
… the “parent plant.” 2. Selecting Choose a ripe, disease-free tomato; one past being edible is best. 3. Removing Cut the tomato ‘around the equator’ and squeeze out the seeds and ‘goo’ in to a strainer over the kitchen sink. Run cold water over and use your fingers to try …
Type: Blog
… eclipse in 92 years. 1. Make a pinhole 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 with a pinhole projector, and one of the best natural projectors is a leaf. Leaves often have holes that can act as natural …
Type: Blog
… Second Winter—can test our ability to feel connected to anything living, including each other and ourselves. When we are stuck inside, our mental images of cherry blossoms, tulips, and forsythia, are hit with the reality of the snow outside our windows, causing a short … 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
… Rigoberto Montoya is an assistant grower for the Plant Production department's indoor floriculture division. He is responsible for the day-to-day care of plants, and he comes up with innovative ways to grow the specialty crops for display. He also assists with the delivery of plants to the garden areas and operates a forklift to unload deliveries of soil, plants, and hard goods. Montoya has been …
Type: Staff bio
