Turning the Pages

Historical depth and futuristic innovation meet in the Lenhardt Library and Lenhardt Plant Science Library.

PHOTO: Rare book exhibitions are displayed at the entrance to the library.
Rare book exhibitions are displayed at the entrance to the Lenhardt Library.

Led by director Leora Siegel, the comprehensive library facility houses rare books dating back to the 1400s. The library also serves as a portal to a nearly unlimited amount of scientific information in the digital realm. It’s a resource for staff researchers, students, interns, and citizen scientists alike. Beneath the quiet of the library shelves, there is an ever-present forward movement. “Everything that we do here is about providing information to anyone who needs it,” said Siegel. “Our scientists who are out there in the forefront and publishing have the library behind them to get needed information.”

The library was recently named one of the newest contributors to the Biodiversity Heritage Library, an open-access, digitized collaboration of leading garden and scientific libraries nationwide. The move allows the Chicago Botanic Garden to share digitized materials unique to its collection with the broader research community. Together with other contributing institutions, the Garden is “trying to make biodiversity literature available for everyone around the world, especially in places where they do not have physical libraries,” explained Siegel.

PHOTO: A view into the research and storage shelves at the Plant Conservation Science Center.
Research-specific collections reside in the Plant Science Center.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library collection is a resource long accessed by Garden scientists, in addition to a multitude of books, digitized journals, and databases available through the Lenhardt Library and Lenhardt Plant Science Library. The comprehensive resources allow scientists to dig deeply into subject matter; for example, accessing journal articles from the early days of a publication to the most recent edition. This is critical to their work, according to Siegel, who explained that current research must always reference early work on related material, and build upon subsequent research leading to current theories.

The library facility, which was founded by the Woman’s Board of the Chicago Horticultural Society in 1951, predates the physical structure in which it now sits, the Regenstein Center. The Lenhardt Plant Science Library is a research-specific facility in the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center. It is not open to the public, but is used by Garden scientists. 

One of Siegel’s favorite science books is Seeds: Ecology, Biogeography, and Evolution of Dormancy and Germination, which is housed in the Lenhardt Plant Science Library.

PHOTO: Leora Siegel.
Leora Siegel directs the Garden’s libraries.

Siegel has been managing this tremendous resource for more than ten years. To her, it was a natural path from her childhood in New York where her love of plants began. She went on to pursue advanced degrees in biology and library science. “My worlds align in working here,” she reflected. “This is a great institution.”

Perhaps one of her favorite elements is the Rare Book Collection, which can be seen during special tours. “It’s just magical to touch a book from 1483,” she noted. “Sharing it with someone is just a pleasure.” The Rare Book Collection includes original materials published by Carolus Linnaeaus, who changed the way we understand the natural world, and who established binomial nomenclature. A bronze statue of Linnaeus anchors the Heritage Garden near the Regenstein Center.

In summer, Siegel often passes by the statue on her way to her favorite display garden—Evening Island. On cooler days, she enriches her day with a walk through the Greenhouses.


©2014 Chicago Botanic Garden and my.chicagobotanic.org

The Plant Doctor Is in the House

A couple years ago, in early spring, I got the kind of call that puts a “plant doctor” like me on edge. “Come look at the roses right away,” someone said. In my 25 years at the Chicago Botanic Garden, no one has ever called me to say, “Hey, Tom, come look at the roses; they look great today!” I’m in charge of plant healthcare at the Garden, so when I pick up the phone, there’s usually a problem.

I got the call about the Krasberg Rose Garden following a string of very damp nights that meant trouble—a white fuzz had spread over all the roses. The fuzz was a destructive pathogen that produces mycelium, or fungal spores. It can happen pretty much overnight. We ended up managing the problem, but it was scary to start off a season like that. Roses are tricky, prone to a lot of diseases and insect problems. Our friends at the Missouri Botanical Garden lost all their roses to a virus called rose rosette disease. 

I don’t just get calls about diseases or pests such as the emerald ash borer. I get called to the Butterflies & Blooms exhibition if the staff is worried about a larva or to the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden if there’s a raccoon problem. I like to say that I’m sort of like a CSI detective when it comes to plants. If a plant is failing, I try to find out why and what it needs. I look at the buds, the stem, the trunk, the root flare, the soil, and the plant’s history over the years.

PHOTO: Tom Tiddens poses with a cardboard coyote cutout, used to deter varmints from veg.
Tom Tiddens and a plant healthcare specialist’s best friend head out to play fetch.

I also work with the horticulturists on preventive care, including watering, pruning, weeding, and fertilizing. When I see a problem in the early stages, I’m very patient and tolerant. I like to see if Mother Nature might take care of it—maybe a hard rain will wash away any aphids or the ladybugs will get rid of the pests, for instance.

People ask me how I track the health of more than 2.6 million plants here. I have two great plant healthcare specialists who work with me, and I really rely on the horticulturists—they’re my eyes out in the field—and my volunteer team, which includes a lot of master gardeners. Every week, I give the volunteers a map and checklist marked with target plants and pests. So a typical volunteer assignment, for example, would be to check the spirea bushes in the Sensory Garden for aphids.

PHOTO: Bagworms infect a pine.
From bagworms…
PHOTO: Rust infects a fruit and leaf.
…to rust…


PHOTO: Black spot infects rose foliage.
…to black spot on roses, Tom Tiddens treats them all.

The average home gardener doesn’t have to be so methodical. Gardening shouldn’t be a chore. I like to keep things simple at home. I don’t like weeding, and I avoid using a lot of perennials or groundcovers. I like having a nice woodchip mulch bed and a mulching lawnmower. It’s the same thing with fall leaves. Everyone bags up all the leaves. Nope. I raise my mulching lawnmower, and I just grind them into the lawn.

Register now for a certificate class with Tom Tiddens, plant health care supervisor and certified arborist. From July 21 to August 28, he will teach Plant Health 2 with Kathie Hayden, the Garden’s manager of plant information service.    

©2014 Chicago Botanic Garden and my.chicagobotanic.org

Praying Mantis “Children” in the Growing Garden

One of our favorite insects at the Chicago Botanic Garden is the praying mantis. So we were very excited to obtain an egg case earlier this spring. We decided to keep it indoors so we could watch it hatch, and then release the newly hatched insects into the Garden.

PHOTO: Preying mantid egg case on a twig.
About 100 praying mantises emerged from this ootheca and were released into the Grunsfeld Children’s Growing Garden.

A praying mantis egg case is called an ootheca (pronouned oh-uhTHEE-kuh). The plural is oothecae (oh-uh-THEE-see). The ootheca was produced by a female praying mantis last fall. She laid her eggs in this foam of protein that hardened around a stick and protected the eggs through the winter. The eggs usually hatch in mid-June to early July. The half-inch-long immature praying mantis nymphs resemble the adult, but they do not have wings. 

PHOTO: Hundreds of baby mantids pour out of an egg case.
Colorless praying mantis nymphs emerge from the ootheca all at one time. During their first hour, they darken in color to blend in with their surroundings.

After our praying mantises hatched inside an insect cage, I discovered that a bed of false sunflower plants (Heliopsis helianthoides) in the Grunsfeld Children’s Growing Garden was infested with red aphids. I released the praying mantises, and the hungry babies immediately began to feed.

PHOTO: Mantis nymphs on the head of a Rudbeckia flower covered with aphids.
At first, the praying mantis babies seemed a little bewildered by their new surroundings, but they quickly acclimated.
PHOTO: Mantis nymph on a flower stem eyes aphids—a tasty meal.
This mantis held very still as it eyed its prey.
PHOTO: A row of mantis nymphs on a leaf face a stem covered with red aphids.
These four little mantises lined up and stared at the aphids that would certainly become lunch soon.

It wasn’t exactly aphid carnage—much to the disappointment of our eighth grade Camp CBG helper, Joshua, who assisted me with the release—but the young predators did appear to enjoy their first meal.  

PHOTO: Preying mantis on liatris bloom in August.
By the end of August, some of our little friends will be as big as this praying mantis (and just as hungry)!

It may surprise you to know that although it looked like a bad infestation, aphids are not really a big problem for the plants. When they are very abundant, it does not take long for natural predators like praying mantises and ladybugs to find them and move in for a feast. Predatory insects will take care of the problem if you are patient and let nature take its course. If aphids show up in your garden and they bother you, we recommend hosing them off with water rather than using an insecticide, because chances are pretty good that there are beneficial insects on your plants, too. Hosing with a strong jet of water will knock off all the bugs and kill most of the aphids, but it won’t be as devastating to the mantises or other beneficial insects as poison.

We have placed praying mantis oothecae in the Regenstein Fruit & Vegetable Garden and Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden, as well as in the Children’s Growing Garden, to ensure that there will be a population of our favorite insect for you to find. Many of them will survive on aphids and other insects they capture and devour on our flowers, and they will grow up over the summer. The next time you visit, stop by and see if you can find them helping our plants remain healthy and less bothered by pests.

©2014 Chicago Botanic Garden and my.chicagobotanic.org