Donna LaPietra, Executive Producer of the Antiques & Garden Fair, recently interviewed Peter Wirtz who will be speaking at the Fair this year. Peter is a well-known contemporary landscape designer who has designed private gardens locally and his lecture, “Formal and Informal in Contemporary Landscape Design” shouldn’t be missed.
Month: March 2011
Spring’s Earliest Blooming Flowers
Boyce Tankersley, Director of Plant Documentation, took us on a tour of the earliest blooming plants in the display gardens. We began in the Sensory Garden, where huge patches of Iris histrioides ‘George’ were blooming better than ever. Then we went to the Lakeside Gardens to see large patches of giant snowdrops blooming under deciduous trees. The witch hazel outside the English Walled Garden is very fragrant and quite showy right now. We also like the Galanthus nivalis ‘Flore Plenum’ snowdrops in the English Walled Garden, because their petals look like a miniature rose and they are very fragrant. The Waterfall Garden has a nice display of snowdrops that is worth the climb to the top. The crocuses in the lawn near the Bulb Garden were also very showy. You’ll also find crocus in the lawn on Evening Island.
These are just some blooming highlights, visit www.chicagobotanic.org/inbloom for information on what’s in bloom now.
Seed Starting Tips from Windy City Harvest
Blayne Greiner, Instructor for the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Windy City Harvest urban agriculture program, gives us some tips from his recent class on seed starting. A lot of information was covered in this 3-hour workshop, so if this video still leaves you with questions, consider taking these courses. Visit chicagobotanic.org/windycityharvest/courses to sign up for the next one.
View the video on YouTube here.
In case you missed it, here’s the recipe for blocking mix: 30 quarts brown peat, 20 quarts compost, ½ cup lime, 20 quarts coarse sand or perlite, 10 quarts soil, 3 cups organic fertilizer mix (blood meal, colloidal phosphate and greensand mixed together in equal parts).