Archives For Behind the Scenes

An uncommon look at how the Chicago Botanic Garden’s beauty is created and cultivated.

Time to Uncover the Rose Garden

Give the roses their breath of fresh air!

Tom Soulsby —  April 10, 2013 — 3 Comments

Who doesn’t love a warm winter blanket? With unseasonably cold temperatures continuing into early April, that blanket has been especially welcome this year. If you are like me, though, you just can’t wait for that first day when you lose the covers and open the windows. It is that breath of fresh air that tells us summer is just around the corner.

PHOTO: A view of the roses near the education building.

Roses under a warm winter blanket of mulch.

Our Krasberg Rose Garden is ready for its breath of fresh air, too. All winter, many of our roses have been under their warm blanket of composted horse manure. Compost protects roses from the harsh winter winds and freeze and thaw cycles that can be deadly to many cultivars.

As the hours of sunlight increase and daytime temperatures get warmer, however, we need to start inspecting our roses for signs that it is time to remove the compost and prepare the roses for the beauty yet to come.

The process is fairly straightforward. In late March, or whenever we have had several warm days with limited risk of a killing frost, we use our hands to carefully remove the thawed compost from around a rose bush. We need to inspect several bushes because some areas of our Garden thaw and start actively growing earlier than others.

PHOTO: A rose with new spring growth.

New growth from the base of the plant.

We look for yellow, bright green or reddish growth around the base of the plant — these are new rose canes. If we do not see any new growth or if new growth is still very small, we may cover the roses for a few more days. The warm compost encourages rose bushes to break dormancy.

However, if we see new growth and it is an inch or longer, then is it time to completely remove the compost and let the canes grow freely. The sooner this new growth begins to photosynthesize in the sun, the healthier and stronger your plant will be the rest of season. Remember that this new growth is very fragile, so we use gentle care when removing the compost.

PHOTO: Rose before Pruning

Look for black canes that indicate they are dead.

Once we remove the compost, our team then prunes the canes for optimum health. We first remove any cane that is black or brown — these are dead or dying — and anything that looks diseased.

From there, we prune the shrub until it has five or six healthy, large canes that are at least the diameter of a pencil. The pruning should result in an open center, with the top bud on each remaining cane facing away from the center of the plant. The open center maximizes the amount of sunshine and air circulation within the plant — important components to plant growth and disease prevention.

We also take time to frequently disinfect our pruning tools as we work through this late-winter chore. Tools can easily transfer diseases from one rose shrub to another, so sanitation is very important. Mix a solution of 10 percent rubbing alcohol or bleach and 90 percent water in a spray bottle to spray on your tools.

PHOTO: The final rose after spring pruning.

After pruning, the remaining canes look healthy.

By taking a few simple steps like these right now, the rose bushes will be on their way to beautiful blooms in June. Now that’s a breath of fresh air.

You can learn more about rose care with a class at the Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Chicago Botanic Garden. Click here to see what classes are currently available.

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Miniature maintenance!

Karen Z. —  March 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

With just two months to go until the Model Railroad Garden opens, one dedicated group of volunteers undertook a big job this week: cleaning and retouching the 500+ miniature figurines that accessorize the garden’s landmark buildings.

Led by Becky Maganuco, volunteers got out the toothbrushes and toothpicks, the glue and the triple-zero paintbrushes, and set to work.

PHOTO: Volunteer Becky Maganuco with a box of miniatures.

Becky gets the boxes of miniatures out from winter hibernation. It’s good to see familiar faces!

An ark's worth of animals prop the Railroad Garden's landmarks.

An ark’s worth of animals prop the Model Railroad Garden’s landmarks.

Over the course of several days, they washed (the cars, trucks, and tractors were especially dirt encrusted), touched up paint (eyes and eyebrows are the trickiest), and glued back the tiny hands and feet that are inevitably broken (weather, errant human footsteps) during five months spent outdoors in the Model Railroad Garden.

PHOTO: George and Judy Knuth sorting a pile of miniatures.

Railroad Garden volunteers George and Judy Knuth sorted, organized, and repaired figurines.

PHOTO: Volunteer painting a horse miniature.

An appaloosa horse gets fresh tiny, tiny spots in volunteer Gerry Lewis’ expert care.

I always look forward to the May days that Becky and fellow miniaturists, many of whom are members of Northbrook’s North Shore Miniature Society, accessorize the garden. It takes them a couple of days to layer in all the right details: the barber pole on Main Street…the sunbathers and sailboaters on Cape Cod…the lone wolf and the bears in Yellowstone National Park…even Bo the dog at the White House.

Their work makes the buildings come to life, and never fails to delight—key factors in a garden that’s especially for children, for whom the magic and humor of the small will always trump the realities of life-sized.

PHOTO: Rows of miniature citizens.

Freshly painted figurines—some for circus, some for city—drying in an organized fashion.

There’s a practical side to their miniature work as well: “Visitors take close-up pictures and use telephoto lenses a lot in this garden, so it’s nice to make the details look a little more real,” says Becky.

What’s new for 2013? Volunteers are mulling how to accessorize the most recently added landmark, the Lincoln Memorial.

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Willow Pruning in the Malott Japanese Garden

Walking on Water

Mike Kwiatek —  February 8, 2013 — 2 Comments

If you took advantage of the warm weather last Tuesday and decided to visit the Chicago Botanic Garden, you may have noticed something unusual, especially if you wandered over to the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden.

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The Zigzag Bridge was closed for public safety until we could finish pruning.

The sight of horticulturists walking on water was not a hallucination.
In spite of the 60-degree weather, the lake was still frozen and we took advantage of the situation to finish some winter pruning.

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The arborists, equipped with the proper safety equipment, are busy pruning the small willow branches.

 Though this willow pruning appears very intense, even harsh, it provides airflow into the tree and gives young branches more room to grow. Some of the large, more upright branches are left to provide height. From an aesthetic point of view, this pruning gives the tree significantly more texture, creating clumps that flow into thin weeping branches. As willows can become quite large, pruning also prevents the tree from becoming disproportionately so.

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Benjamin Carroll stands on the ice to prune and provide direction to the arborists.

For the past four years, Benjamin Carroll, the senior horticulturist who maintains the Japanese Garden, has been working with arborists from the area to shape up his trees to give them a more traditional appearance. This style first emerged in Japan.

Seba on the Kisokaido by Utagawa Hiroshige shows the style we are trying to emulate.

Before this style of pruning was implemented, the willows were pruned to appear mounded. For the first three years of this pruning style, many large branches were cut to drastically change the appearance of the trees. This past year we were able to focus on smaller branches.

A willow prior to pruning this year.

A willow looks different before it was pruned this year.

January is the best time for us to do this because the trees are dormant and the sheet of ice on the lake is fairly thick. Tree dormancy is very important when pruning because nutrient flow is minimal and the wounds made by winter pruning will heal quickly in the spring.

Cleanliness is very important to us, it looks good and reduces debris that could promote disease.

While the arborists cut branches with pole saws and chainsaws, I moved branches off the ice.

 The thickness of the ice is also helpful to us because it simplifies cleanup.

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After the branches are moved to shore, they’re loaded onto a club car and taken to the mulch pile.

Cleanliness is very important to us because it not only keeps the Garden looking its best but it also reduces debris that could cause disease problems in the future.

Though we look fairly confident walking on the ice, it is important to remember that ice is always dangerous. We always have seasoned professionals and the proper safety equipment nearby.

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Goodnight, Roses

Karen Z. —  December 13, 2012 — 1 Comment

What a difference a month makes!

In early November, many of the roses that bloom twice per year (called remontant, or repeat-blooming) were still putting on quite a show in the Rose Garden. Even that late in the season, the garden looked exceptionally lush—canes were tall, bloom was heavy, and November’s cold-but-not-freezing nights kept the last of the season’s flowers going through Thanksgiving.

Finally, early December brought below-freezing nighttime temperatures—and Garden staff jumped into action to put the rose beds “to sleep” for the winter. Now the garden looks entirely different.

  • View 1: The Rose Garden in fall View 1: The Rose Garden in fall
  • View 1: The Rose Garden in winter View 1: The Rose Garden in winter
  • View 2: The Rose Garden in fall View 2: The Rose Garden in fall
  • View 2: The Rose Garden in winter View 2: The Rose Garden in winter
  • View 3: The Rose Garden in fall View 3: The Rose Garden in fall
  • View 3: The Rose Garden in winter View 3: The Rose Garden in winter
  • View 4: The Rose Garden in fall View 4: The Rose Garden in fall
  • View 4: The Rose Garden in winter View 4: The Rose Garden in winter
     

 

The process that our staff uses to prep roses for winter is the same process you can use in your rose garden, too.

Step 1: Prune canes.

While early spring is the major pruning season for roses, end-of-the-year pruning protects the plant from winter wind (canes can whip around and scar each other, and stiff winds can pull long-caned plants out of the ground). Prune out thin or crossing canes to open up the plant, and cut back remaining canes by one-third in height.

Step 2: Clean up leaf litter.

This simple step can prevent major problems later, as leaf litter is a prime source of diseases and pest problems. As you can imagine, we have a lot of leaf litter in a garden with 5,000 roses plants; our truly dedicated volunteers and staff spent two days removing every last leaf from the beds.

Step 3: Mulch.

Mounded up and around each rose plant is a thick layer of mulch (we use well-aged horse manure, but chopped and well-composted leaves work, too). Mulch protects the plants, helps maintain even temperatures, and adds fresh nutrients to the soil. When spring arrives, this extra blanket of mulch will be removed.

And speaking of spring, check out our YouTube video on how to prune climbing roses:

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From Our Garden to Your Front Door

Karen Z. —  November 29, 2012 — 2 Comments

While the construction crew and the railroad guys were busy laying out the trains and buildings in Wonderland Express, 28 horticulturists and other staff members were busy building their own creations—making the wreaths that now line the Greenhouse gallery walls.

The big “now” story is that they’re all for sale.*

The big “wow” story is that behind each wreath are the hands and hearts of our horticulturists, our maintenance staff, our plant healthcare guys, our security personnel, our managers, etc. Although each person started with the same thing—a wreath form and the beauty of the Garden—we are rocked by the imagination, talent, and joy that they brought to the project.

Here are a few of their stories:

It took Cindy Nykiel (tram driver) and daughter Stacey (security) 46½ hours to engineer a wreath loaded with fun details: birch bark train cars with pistachio shell trim, black bean “coal,” and tiny battery-operated lights twinkling within the ginkgo leaf/catalpa pod bow.

Cindy wreath

A highly-decorated wreath by a mother/daughter team.

The twisted palm frond rosettes are genius.

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A close-up of the palm frond rosettes.

 Senior horticulturist Heather Sherwood redefined starlight in three easy steps:

  1. Bamboo sticks duct taped together for a frame.
  2. Red tube lights zip-tied to the bamboo.
  3. Red twig dogwood, raffia-tied over it all.
Heather wreath

Red tube lights work straight through Valentine’s Day.

Nuts for the holidays? Plant Information Service Manager Kathie Hayden pairs nuts (oak, buckeye), beans (coffee tree), and pods (honey locust, sweetgum) with an appropriately amusing mascot. All but the walnuts (store bought) were collected from Garden grounds.

Kathie wreath

A wreath with a sense of humor.

Custodian Carlos García’s exuberant design is rooted in a vivid memory of a wreath he made in his fifth grade class in Ciudad Hidalgo, Michoacan, Mexico. The construction was a family affair: his kids helped with the cheery and heartfelt decorations.

Carlos wreath

A great solution for a plain front door.

Horticulturist Lisa Hilgenberg has a passion for seeds. Her stunning 11-bean-and-legume snowflake wreath celebrates the great variety found in just one species and hints at the fun we’ll be having at our second annual seed swap on February 24, 2013.

Lisa wreath

By the horticulturist in our Fruit & Vegetable Garden.

After cutting the birch trunks to size for Wonderland’s entrance hall, Exhibitions Manager Dawn Bennett took the leftover trimmings over to the carpenter shop…got out the chop saw…and turned waste into wonderful.

Dawn wreath

A wreath made from slices of birch.

*Priced at $150 each, wreaths are available for pickup after January 6.  Many were made with dried materials gathered at the Garden, which may last for many months indoors.

 

 

In Behind the Scenes, Holiday Decor, Horticulture & Display Gardens, How-To, Programs and Events, Wonderland Express , , , ,
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