… As fall approaches and the leaves begin to change, the Chicago Botanic Garden bids adieu to our beautiful summer blooms until next year. The air starts to get crisper (and your summer plants will too), but September isn’t the expiration date for color and … All species have long, arching branches that cascade outward but with pruning, the shape is variable. Beautyberry should be planted in rich soil and pruned in early spring but otherwise …
Type: Blog
… the renowned (alas, no more) Heronswood Nursery, to far-flung locales such as Vietnam, China, and Bhutan. Much of my presentation focused on plant collecting a tad closer to home—not as … the Chicago Botanic Garden’s plant breeder. So let’s go seek out the elusive wild phlox. Phlox is predominantly a North American genus (one species sneaks into Siberia) best known for its gaudily—some say garishly colored—harbinger of spring, the moss phlox ( Phlox subulata ), and for that summer stalwart, the garden phlox ( Phlox paniculata ). For an idea of the diversity …
Type: Blog
… determined that Spike had run out of the energy it needed to continue its bloom cycle. Spike is powered by energy from the sun, stored in its beach-ball-sized corm—a tuber-like underground … “I WISH MY BIOLOGY TEACHER WAS HERE.” As this week’s expected bloom time passed, our science and horticultural staff went into action. Spike wasn’t dying—but the flower structure had stopped maturing, and the spathe did not open. On Friday, Dr. Shannon Still, conservation scientist, and Tim …
Type: Blog
… Many students I know struggle to find a good idea for science fair projects and sometimes wait until the last minute to do their experiments. We in the Education Department of the Chicago Botanic Garden are committed to helping make science fair a painless and even fun learning experience for students, parents, and teachers by offering some simple ideas for studying plants. A no-brainer botany project is testing germination of radish seeds in different conditions. Radish seeds are easy to acquire, …
Type: Blog
… From the 2015 archives: It is our pleasure to introduce another titan arum (in bloom!), which we have joyfully named Alice … structure, or inflorescence, is also known as a flower spike. But the true name of Spike (and Alice) is a title that can make you blush, do a double take, or send you running to Google. … existed. Linnaeus created the scientific shortcut of categorizing plants by their flowers and fruit (leaves had already been tried and abandoned). The elegant system caught on, and …
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… order to satisfy their chill requirement. Simply defined, the accumulation of chill units (CU) is a cumulative measure of the number of hours trees spend between 32 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Liken this process to a reset of the tree’s biological clock. This … the nutrients stored in the roots into a form that can flow up the trunk as the weather warms and support flowering and growth. Time spent at winter temperatures above 60 degrees and below 32 …
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… years ago, English poet William Wordsworth came upon the happy sight of daffodils in spring—and was inspired to write one of the most beloved nature poems in the English language. The poem, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” is a reminder of the ability of the natural world to lift spirits. Wordsworth wrote the poem on … under the crabapple trees in the Graham Bulb Garden, masses of large-cupped daffodils are on and around the meadow on Evening Island, etc. Yep, he keeps those kinds of notes. In this …
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… Cook County in the summer. But now, thanks to the ban on certain pesticides (including DDT), and the creation of osprey nesting platforms, the fish-eating bird is breeding again in local forest preserves. The osprey looks somewhat like an adult bald eagle, … full white head or tail. Instead, it has a broad brown band through the eye, a brown back, and white belly. An osprey flies with a crook in its wings. Immature bald eagles, with their …
Type: Blog
… walk of the Garden. Or did you say cow slobbers? Whatever you call it, Tradescantia ohiensis is just one of the prairie plants that has a unique story to tell. Tradescantia ohiensis , better … the day flower family, which commonly features plants with flowers that open for a day or less and then deliquesce (liquefy). If you pinch one of the blue petals between your fingers, you will … you break a leaf, you will understand how this common name came to be. The genus Tradescantia and others in this family have a mucilaginous sap that, for all you farmers out there, resembles …
Type: Blog
… I appreciate any cultivar name that invokes thoughts of my favorite holiday: Halloween. It is fun to stumble upon some Gaillardia ‘Goblin’ , Hemerocallis ‘Bela Lugosi’ , or Alchemilla mollis ‘Thriller’ and suddenly wonder, “What should my costume be this year?” One perennial in particular has a … partial sun will produce the darkest foliage. Side-flowered asters can grow three feet tall, and a striking effect is to plant it in front of Blackhaw viburnum (Viburnum prunifolium) or …
Type: Blog
