It may be winter outside but you couldn't tell by the colorful blooms under glass at the Garfield Park Conservatory.
These pictures were taken this past Saturday during "Sweet Saturdays" at the conservatory on Chicago's West Side. The next, and final, "Sweet Saturday" is on February 13, 2010 from 11-4PM. Take the family for the demonstrations and flowers or pick up some last minute gifts for Valentine's Day. Check out the photo gallery below for more photographs of blooms.
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I've been reading most of the articles and garden blogger attempts to counter the article by Caitlin Flanagan, that I think is a
hilarious burn, in
The Atlantic. Most of them seem to be emotionally based reactions with lots of pom poms, but offer very little of the defense the titles promise.
After speaking briefly with Michael Thompson, of the
Chicago Honey Co-op, at a recent event I came away wanting to be drawn into the camp of the people who are up in arms over Caitlin Flanagan's attack on school gardens.
I came across an article that I thought would finally show me that Caitlin Flanagan was wrong.
The
Three Friends of Winter is an exhibit of deciduous bonsai trees at the Chicago Botanic Garden. It runs from January 29-31, 2010 from 10 a.m to 4 p.m. Check out the video of the exhibit post by the Chicago Botanic Garden to their YouTube channel.
The witch hazel is amazing!
Kigela africana, or Sausage Tree, is a native of the southeastern region of Africa. This is the second year the tree has set fruit at the Lincoln Park Conervatory, the picture in this post is from last year. The fruits can weigh as much as 20 pounds each and measure 2 feet long. The tree gets its common name from, well, just look at it!
As the video below from ABC7 explains the sausage is actually a berry and has the tree has many medicinal uses.
Before the term "garden blog" was even coined there was Gayla Trail's You Grow Girl. A few years back when I discovered the internet was good for things besides playing online games I stumbled upon You Grow Girl. While the site and blog seemed to be populated mostly by hip, urban and crafty young women, the subtitle for the blog, "Gardening for the People," resonated with me so I stuck around to read the blog and eventually participate in the forums and became a fanboy. Around this time it was still pretty novel for a blogger to go from blogging to being a published author or pop culture personality, so the fact that Gayla Trail went from being a "blogger" to an author fascinated me. The You Grow Girl book was soon added to my personal gardening book library.
I believe that gardens are good things; I believe that exposing kids to gardening and other outdoor activities are good things--I believe this with every fiber of my being. Yet, I think the article
Cultivating Failure by Caitlin Flanagan for
The Atlantic is a thing of genius. If you're a fan of Alice Waters you probably won't feel the same. Similarly, some gardeners are not feeling the love because they see the article as an indictment on gardening-they're internalizing Ms. Flanagan's writing-instead of asking themselves if she has a point.
In the conversation about the dangers of genetically modified seeds and the benefits of heirloom seeds happening across the internet it seems like hybrids are be getting a bad reputation. The word "hybrid" sounds scary and conjures up images from the nightmares you have after viewing a science fiction movie. The truth is that hybrid plants have been around a long time. Simply put, hybridizing is the creation of new plants from plants that already exist. Sometimes even the supporters of GMOs fail to understand that hybrids are not synonymous with GMOs.
On a beautiful summer day a happy young woman walks through her lush garden with a basket in her hand. While surveying the paradise that she's created for herself she notices that her tomato plants are crowded with delicious red tomatoes. The look of contentment on her face turns to sheer joy at the sight of her bounty. She does what every gardener does before harvesting a crop, she snaps a picture of it with her smart phone and uploads it the internet, no doubt to Facebook or Twitpic, with the caption "from MY garden!"
This scene is from a commercial posted on the internet that will be airing this spring to support the Burpee Home Gardens product line. "Isn't it great? It will be airing across the country," said Erica Zipp, Account Executive at Bader Rutter the marketing agency responsible for the commercial, when I spoke to her today. Indeed, the commercial struck a cord with me even though probably a couple of years older and far less affluent (if the size of the garden in this commercial is any indication) than the target audience. As a garden blogger I'm regularly taking photos of what I'm most proud of in my garden and uploading them to the internet.
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