Catch Summer and Pokémon at the Chicago Botanic Garden

Pokémon hunting in the Garden can be a great way to stop and take a closer look at some of the gardens while connecting with other visitors. Ordinarily, we love our visitors to enjoy our gardens with their senses, not their phones, but with the new Pokémon GO app, you can do both.

PHOTO: Screen shots of Pokémon GO game being played at the Garden.
Tagging us on Facebook, Pokémon hunter Patricio28 shared these screen shots of the forest of PokéStops and Gyms at the Garden.

Essentially an app that lets you run around and catch Pokémon using GPS and the camera on your phone, Pokémon GO has taken over the imaginations of kids and adults alike since its recent release. The game is global—users can play anywhere in the world—and the Garden is one of the locations with many features for those using the game.

Nearly 50 PokéStops dot the Garden grounds, typically tied to sculptures and commemorative plaques embedded in walkways. In addition, six Gyms—virtual locations where players can train and battle their Pokémon—are currently found on-site.

But that’s not all that’s to be found: the gardens are a mass of blooms and butterflies, herons and hostas, and beautiful sunsets. The best of both worlds—real and virtual—is here.

The Circle Garden in summer
The Circle Garden in summer
Circle Garden Fountain Pokemon Screenshot
Two PokéStops can be found at the Circle Garden.
PHOTO: Birds on Eggs by Sylvia Shaw Judson is a Poké Stop at the Garden.
Hidden behind tall corn and sunflowers at the Regenstein Fruit & Vegetable Garden, Birds On Eggs by Sylvia Shaw Judson would ordinarily be missed in the height of summer, but as a PokéStop, visitors get to enjoy the sculpture and explore the path to the orchard behind it.
PHOTO: Olivier Sequin's  Caricia sculpture .
A Pokémon Gym location near Olivier Sequin’s Caricia sculpture takes visitors on a path less traveled behind the Farwell Landscape Garden.

As you discover the Garden and the Pokémon here, please keep these tips in mind:

Look up! Please always be aware of people around you, especially in the Visitor Center. This is a popular location to plant Lures, as people take a break and eat at the Garden View Café and on outdoor decks. When you find a Pokémon on a path or in a garden, please take a moment to look around you first—you want to frame your screen shot nicely, but you also don’t want to ruin the visitor experience for our other guests, who may not have any idea what you are doing with your phone. 

PHOTO: Goldeen Pokémon at the Visitor Center bridge.
Goldeen
PHOTO: Psyduck Pokémon at the Visitor Center bridge.
Psyduck
PHOTO: Kukuna Pokémon in the Heritage Garden.
Kakuna
PHOTO: Meowth Pokémon at the Visitor Center entryway.
Meowth

Walk away, and walk back. If the GPS signal stops or you can’t get to a particular PokéStop, just keep walking. There is probably another one close by that’ll spit out more PokéBalls, eggs, and potions.

The perimeter of the Garden is less crowded with Pokémon hunters, and it is a beautiful 2.3-mile walk. Hatch an egg or five while you take in the sights from afar. The Dixon Prairie is in full bloom, and the East Road offers a lovely vista of the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden. Visit the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center Green Roof Gardens (where a Pikachu was spotted earlier this week), and get back to the main gardens over the Trellis Bridge. 

The Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center Rooftop Garden
The Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center Rooftop, and its view of the Garden.
Summer Evenings at the Garden
Summer Evenings at the Garden

Find nighttime Pokémon as you picnic at our evening concerts. The Garden is open through 9 p.m. all summer, so stay late, and join us Monday through Thursday nights for open-air concerts at the Garden. Pack a picnic and some lawn chairs—and maybe an extra battery charger. Activate a lure in the app to attract Pokémon to one of the PokeStops nearby while you enjoy the music.

Get creative. The Garden is always a great place to take photos. Get creative by trying to screenshot your Pokémon frolicking on the grounds. Get a shot of Goldeen swimming in a fountain, position Pidgey on the branch of a Linden tree, or catch Charmander riding a train in the Model Railroad Garden. The photos are also a great way to remember what you saw in the Garden, since the app’s journal tells you when you caught certain Pokémon but not where. Use the photos as visual reminders of the places you enjoyed on your Pokémon hunt and as a way to mark what you’d want to experience further on a future visit, either on another virtual adventure or for an unplugged trek.

Tell us what you find. Grab a screen shot and tag us on social media with #CBGPokemonGO—we’d love to know what you find and share with our other visitors.

We have found that Meowth is almost always hanging around the entrance to the Garden, which is also a Gym location, as well as the path to the Visitor Center. Psyduck is usually on the southern end of the Garden, but a Golduck has been spotted by the Crescent Garden. There’s a lot of water here, so expect to catch Goldeen, Magicarp, Polliwag, Shellder, and Staryu. A garden is full of birds and bugs, and ours is no exception—Pidgey and Spearow abound; Weedle, Metapod, Caterpie, and Kakuna are out and about. Ratata can be found near buildings, of course, and Eevee can be found throughout the Garden. Dratini and Bellsprout were lurking here this morning. 

©2016 Chicago Botanic Garden and my.chicagobotanic.org

60-Second Science: Green Roof Plants are Tough

Gardeners and farmers know that healthy plants need good soil and the right amounts of both water and sunlight. But green roofs are intentionally built with an engineered soil-like substance that more closely resembles a pile of rocks than rich, moist potting soil.

To make matters worse, the tops of buildings are often blindingly sunny and very hot in the summer. So how do plants like grasses and wildflowers survive in this type of harsh environment?

PHOTO: Cactus and allium grown on green roof.
Cactus and other succulents retain water in their tissues. Ornamental onion (Allium) species have underground bulbs that help them get through cold winters and dry summers.

Not all plants will grow on a green roof, even in the temperate Midwest. Most plant species that are successful in the desert-like habitats of green roofs have beneficial adaptations that allow them to absorb and store water and nutrients. Some have succulent leaves with thick waxy coatings to prevent water from evaporating. Others have roots that grow horizontally rather than vertically to maximize the areas from which they absorb water and nutrients. Some use a modified type of photosynthesis to prevent water loss during the hottest and driest part of the day. Still others use bulbs or underground tubers to store nutrients during the long cold winters. Some species may even form partnerships with special fungi in the soil that help their roots with more effective absorption.

While plant species evolved to develop these various adaptations on the ground, such traits serve the individual plants very well in the harsh environment of a green roof. The next time you visit a green roof, you might see a striking diversity of species but you won’t see any wimps. No, these plants are both beautiful and tough. 

PHOTO: Shortgrass prairie plants grown on a rooftop garden at shallow depths.
Even in very shallow soil and full sun, some plants that normally grow in shortgrass prairies are able to grow and reproduce. (This is from some of my research at Loyola University.)
PHOTO: PCSC green roof in summer 2015.
Plants can be both tough and beautiful on green roofs. (This photo is of the Plant Science Center last summer.)

Find more of the best plants for green roofs on our Pinterest board, and see Richard Hawke’s Plant Evaluation Notes for the plants that performed best on our green roof.


Students in the Chicago Botanic Garden and Northwestern University Program in Plant Biology and Conservation were given a challenge: Write a short, clear explanation of a scientific concept that can be easily understood by non-scientists. This post is part of their series.

©2016 Chicago Botanic Garden and my.chicagobotanic.org

Osprey: Fish-eater returns as breeder in Cook County

Several decades ago, an osprey would be a rare—if not impossible—sight in 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, but doesn’t have the eagle’s 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 mottled black and white plumage, can easily be mistaken for ospreys. In summer, visitors can watch an osprey (Pandion haliaetus)—with its 6-foot wingspan—soar above a lake, then plunge in to snatch a meal with its talons to bring to its young. 

PHOTO: Osprey in flight.
Osprey in flight
Photo © Carol Freeman

Once endangered in Illinois, the osprey disappeared as a breeding bird from Illinois about 60 years ago. Scientists think, as with the bald eagle, that when the osprey ingested certain pesticides, the chemicals caused its eggs to thin and crumble during brooding. After DDT was banned, state biologists hoped the osprey would return to breed in Illinois. But the bird needed some help, including cleaning up local waterways and providing nesting areas.

In the 1990s, Cook County Forest Preserves officials, following the lead of biologists in other states, began erecting osprey nesting platforms—40-inch-wide platforms atop 50-foot-tall posts—in the preserves, hoping the ospreys would use them to nest.

It worked. The tall structures gave the ospreys a 360-degree view of their surroundings, something scientists say the birds need when choosing a nesting spot. Today, at least a dozen osprey pairs breed in Cook County, with several more in other nearby counties.

This year, the Chicago Botanic Garden installed an osprey nesting platform, and is waiting to see if a pair will find it to their liking.

According to officials of the Cook County Forest Preserves, 12 osprey pairs bred on man-made platforms in the county in 2014, including at Long John Slough at the Little Red Schoolhouse in Willow Springs. A pair of osprey tending to their nest atop a platform was photographed at Saganashkee Slough in the Palos Preserves this year by Wes Serafin, a long-time proponent of helping ospreys return as a breeding species to Cook County.

PHOTO: An osprey keeps a tight grip on lunch.
An osprey keeps a tight grip on lunch.
Photo © Carol Freeman

The ospreys return in April, often to the same platform they used the previous year. They build a nest of sticks atop the platform, adding new ones each year. The female lays three to four eggs, which hatch in about 38 days. While she broods, the male fiercely defends their territory and brings food to his mate. The young remain in the nest for about two months, begging constantly for food. Then they take their first flights off the platform.

Watching an osprey grab a meal can be fascinating. The bird appears as if it is going to plunge head-first into the water, but then it straightens its head and grasps the fish with its talons. Two forward-facing and two backward-facing toes have sharp spines that enable the bird to clutch the fish. Occasionally an osprey will grab a fish too heavy for it to carry, in which case the osprey might drop it, and try for another meal.

The osprey that nest in northern Illinois in summer spend winters in Florida, Mexico, and South America.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is now in the fourth year of their program designed to bring more osprey to the state to increase the number of breeding pairs.

The osprey is the July bird species highlighted by the Forest Preserves of Cook County. Come #birdthepreserves with the FPDCC; view the list of upcoming events for free events near you.


©2016 Chicago Botanic Garden and my.chicagobotanic.org

60-Second Science: Attack of the Clones!

Those of us who are Star Wars fans know just how powerful genetic cloning can be. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s discovery of a secret clone army illustrated the power of advanced cloning technology. That army of genetically identical clone warriors went on to become the face of the epic Clone Wars. Meanwhile, in a galaxy much closer, plants are also equipped with the ability to copy themselves as a form of reproduction. This form of asexual reproduction is very common in the natural world, and just as powerful to an ecosystem as a clone army is to a galaxy. 

PHOTO: Clone trooper.
This clone may not take over your Garden…
PHOTO: Red Monarda (beebalm).
…but this Monarda might!

Clonality is a form of plant growth that results in genetically identical individuals.

Unlike in sexual reproduction, clonal individuals often spread horizontally below ground via unique root systems. Above ground, these plants appear to be distinct individuals, but beneath the soil surface, they remain connected, as clones of the same original plant.

The Pando, or "Trembling Giant," is a colony of clonal quaking aspens roughly 80,000 years old, in Fish Lake, Utah.
The Pando, or “Trembling Giant,” is a colony of clonal quaking aspens (Populus tremuloides), roughly 80,000 years old, in Fish Lake, Utah. All the trees are a single living organism sharing one massive root system. Photo by By J Zapell via Wikimedia Commons.

From a plant’s perspective, there are many benefits to clonal growth. For example, in an environment with limited pollinators to facilitate sexual reproduction, it might be better to take matters into your own hands and make a copy of your already awesome self. On the other hand, a vulnerability in one clone (for example, to a fatal fungal outbreak) is just as likely to affect all of the other clones, because they share the same genetic makeup. It is important to note that there are ecological downsides to clonality as well. Many invasive species do well in foreign environments because asexual reproduction enables them to reproduce very quickly. Thus, just as we see in Star Wars, clones can either be a powerful asset or a potent enemy.


Abigail WhiteAbbey White is a graduate student working with Andrea Kramer, Ph.D., and Jeremie Fant, Ph.D., developing genetically appropriate seed mixes of vulnerable plant species for restoration.


Students in the Chicago Botanic Garden and Northwestern University Program in Plant Biology and Conservation were given a challenge: Write a short, clear explanation of a scientific concept that can be easily understood by non-scientists. This post is part of their series.

©2016 Chicago Botanic Garden and my.chicagobotanic.org