Tag: Chicago Botanic Garden

Guides To The Best Monardas For Your Garden

July is the month of Monardas here. We have one straight species (Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa) and three hybrid cultivars: ‘Raspberry Wine’, ‘Purple Rooster’, and what I suspect is a home-grown hybrid that looks like a cross between Wild Bergamot and ‘Purple Rooster’. Gardeners interested in Monarda should check out two trials of various species …

Chasing Crabapple Blossoms At The Chicago Botanic Garden

Catching the Crabapple at peak bloom at the Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG) involves some tricky timing, but we gave it another try last week on the first day that worked. Last time we visited the buds looked as if they were just getting ready to burst. Passing the Regenstein Center, CBG’s building for indoor displays …

An April Visit to The Chicago Botanic Garden

On Friday Judy and I visited the Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG); it’s been a great place to visit since the pandemic struck. Since last June, CBG has been open to the public on a time-reserved basis. Getting our entrance passes online has been easy each time we’ve tried it. Here’s a link from our first …

Return to the Chicago Botanic Garden

Recently the Chicago Botanic Garden was reopened to the public. You’ve got to make a reservation for a specific time slot, as they are controlling the number of people who can be present at any given time. So last Thursday Judy and I got a pass to enter at 5 pm, for our first visit …

Gently Fading Fall at the Chicago Botanic Garden

Autumn seems like it was slow to arrive this year and in a hurry to leave, like a guest visiting out of a sense of obligation.

How to Bring Lilacs Inside

The sweet smell of Lilacs (Syringa vulgaris) is one of the great pleasures of spring. There’s a Lilac planted right outside our window so we could enjoy the scent when it bloomed. Which was a great plan, except that I had forgotten this particular window had been painted shut. So for us to enjoy the …

Help for Midwest Gardeners: How Do I Choose the Right Plant?

Let’s say you’ve decided you want to plant Bee Balm (Monarda didyma). You go to an online catalog, and there could be dozens of varieties to choose from. How do you know which is best? You can go by the description in the catalog, which may be more or less accurate. This may purport to …

Crabapple Blossoms at the Chicago Botanic Garden

It’s not always easy to get to the Chicago Botanic Garden for the peak of the crabapple blossoms. It only lasts a few days, and the dates can be unpredictable. The weather is not always cooperative, and a badly timed rainstorm can put a quick end to all the fragile beauty. It’s worth making the …

Blossoms Are Fleeting, Love Is Eternal

I’ve written before about the glorious display of crabapple blossoms at the Chicago Botanic Garden every spring. But getting to the garden at the right time to see the display is rather challenging. It is at its height for just a few days, a period that can be cut short or eliminated altogether by a …

An Early May Walk Through the Chicago Botanic Garden

Last Saturday morning, after finishing my class at the Chicago Botanic Garden, I walked outside and realized that it was a perfect day. Perfect days have been few and far between this spring, so I called Judy and asked her to come up and meet me so we could take a walk and enjoy the …