Karen Z. – Page 16 – My Chicago Botanic Garden

Botanical Bill’s Big Adventure

“Rise and shine, campers, and don’t forget your booties, ‘cuz it’s coooold out there today!”

If you love Groundhog Day the movie, or just the idea that there’s a Groundhog Day at all, then visit the Garden on Saturday as our own groundhog mascot, Botanical Bill, goes on an adventure. Download a PDF of the scavenger hunt here.

Bring your smartphone and hunt around the Regenstein Center for the answers to the questions below — get five of the ten correct and you’ve earned a cup of hot cocoa at the Garden Café, plus a d.i.y. photo op with Botanical Bill at the Visitor Center Information Desk where he’s hanging out all week!

PHOTO: Botanical Bill at the entrance of the Woodcut exhibit.

1. An exhibition called Woodcut would sound good to a woodchuck — which, along with “whistle pig,” is another common name for a groundhog. Botanical Bill brought his name tag along on his adventure, which starts at the Woodcut exhibition. What material makes up the exhibit’s title?

PHOTO: Botanical Bill checks out the rings on a tree slice.

2. Groundhogs have good eyesight — their eyes are placed high up on their heads, the better to peek out of their burrows while staying mostly hidden. Nonetheless, Botanical Bill used the magnifying glass to get a good look at this tree’s cross section in Woodcut. What kind of tree was it?

3. Groundhogs like to stay close to home—they rarely travel more than ½ mile from their burrow in their entire lives. Botanical Bill sure liked the look of this garden, though, from the In Search of Paradise exhibition in Krehbiel Gallery. Where would he have to travel to visit the real thing?

PHOTO: Botanical Bill catches up on his reading in the library.

4. Groundhogs are rarely seen at the Garden. Much like British royalty and nobility. What collection of books is Botanical Bill admiring in the Lenhardt Library? (Hint: the collection was put together for fans of a popular television show.)

5. Groundhogs eat plants — lots of plants — including up to 1½ pounds per day in the summer. Botanical Bill isn’t so sure about these plants in the case in the Arid Greenhouse — they look like rocks! What kind of plants are they?

PHOTO: Botanical Bill hangs out with an armadillo in the greenhouse.

6. Groundhogs dig burrows that are 2 to 5 feet deep and extend up to 30 feet long! Foxes, snakes, raccoons, and rabbits often reuse old groundhog burrows. Botanical Bill met this fellow burrow maker in the Arid Greenhouse. What kind of topiary animal is it?

PHOTO: Botanical Bill gets a banana snack.

7. Groundhogs graze on grasses and clovers — but what they really love are vegetables and fruit growing in gardens! Botanical Bill gazes longingly at the just-out-of-reach bananas ripening in the Tropical Greenhouse. Walk down to the base of the banana plant — what name is on its plant label?

PHOTO: Botanical Bill enjoys some pitcher plants.

8. Groundhogs are “edge” creatures that like to live in brushy areas on the edges of forests, in farm fields, or even in landscaped neighborhoods. Botanical Bill is admiring the “meat-eating” plants like Venus fly-traps and sundews in the Semitropical Greenhouse. What plant is hanging in the basket above him?

PHOTO: Botanical Bill poses with The Sower.

9. Groundhogs like to sun themselves on rocks, along branches, or on stone walls. Botanical Bill found a sweet spot to catch some sun at The Sower. What year was it installed here? (Hint: Look down for the memorial plaque.)

PHOTO: Botanical Bill grabing a drink at the cafe.

10. Groundhogs aren’t big water drinkers — they get their water from rain and dew on the plants and fruit they eat, instead. While Botanical Bill’s relaxing with a mug of water in the Garden Café, answer this question: What was the name of Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day?

Now scamper over to the Visitor Center Information Desk with your answers. It’s Groundhog Day! Don’t forget to take your picture with Botanical Bill and post it on our Facebook Page!

Woodcut Opens…

In the Woodcut video of artist Bryan Nash Gill at work, there’s a moment that made me gasp: as Gill peels back and lifts the paper from a tree’s cross section that he’s printing on, three dimensions seem suddenly distilled into two, revealing the internal life of the tree. That first peek is profoundly intimate and thought-provoking — check it out here.

It took 1,022 wood "cookies," 3 people, and 3 blisters to install the exhibition's title. — It took 1,022 wood “cookies,” three people, and three blisters to install the exhibition’s title.

Woodcut opened this weekend, with 25 of Gill’s prints presented in Joutras Gallery. Each of the AV (artist variation) prints is made by hand: Gill sands and burns a crosscut of a tree, inks it, then presses paper onto the ridges and edges of the surface. Most of the salvaged wood—fallen trees, a telephone pole, a tree hit by lightning—was collected near his Connecticut studio.

Yes, you can count the tree rings in his prints—but look closely and you’ll also see the good-weather years and the bad…the scars and damage from age and insects…the patterns of growth and the checks of disintegration. The largest print (nearly five feet high) documents an aged ash tree—an especially poignant piece for us at the Garden, where emerald ash borers were discovered in 2011, and where we expect to lose hundreds of native ash trees in the next few years.

The theme of salvaged wood influenced the design of the exhibition itself. In the entry hall, the show’s title is formed by 1,022 wood “cookies” cut from branches pruned at the Garden, then glued into place on the wall. The gallery benches were made especially for this show, milled by an on-site sawyer on World Environment Day (June 3, 2012). After curing, the boards were sanded, sealed, and mounted as bench tops by our carpenters.

Now available at the Garden Shop, Woodcut: Prints by Brian Nash Gill — Now available at the Garden Shop,
*Woodcut: Prints by Bryan Nash Gill.*

Mr. Gill honors the Garden with a print called English Oak, on exhibit with the cross section of the tree from which it’s made. The tree stood as one of a pair along the outer road here; it was removed after it grew into its neighbor, threatening the health of both. (The second tree regained its vigor after the removal.) Gill made just 18 original prints from the cross section; the prints can be purchased at the Garden Shop.

January is a splendid month to learn about trees at the Garden. In conjunction with Woodcut, the School of the Botanic Garden has a terrific lineup of tree-related classes and workshops.

Updated: Snow Drought!

There’s no doubt: it’s a snow drought, and records are falling like…well, like snowflakes should be falling.

Wednesday we broke the record number of days without a 1-inch snowfall (319).
Last weekend we broke the 1940 record of 313 straight days with less than 1 inch of snow on the ground.
Just 1.3 inches of snow (more near the lake) has fallen to date, compared to the norm of 11 inches.

It made us wonder: what does a snow drought mean for your garden?

To find out, we talked with Boyce Tankersley, our director of living plant documentation.

What Snow Drought Can Do to Your Garden

It’s easy to give snow drought the brush-off (no shoveling! no scraping! no wet feet!), but it can damage your plants and affect the soil in your garden. The following can happen in a drought:

1. Moisture loss accelerates. “It’s the combination of no snow cover plus cold winter wind that does the damage,” Tankersley explains. “When there’s no snow, plants act like a wick in the soil, so the wind not only dries out the trees and shrubs, but also the soil they’re planted in.”

2. Soil compacts. In a normal year in the Chicago area, it rains in November, so the moist ground freezes as temperatures drop. Ice crystals form in the soil. As winter progresses, snow piles up, preventing wind from reaching the frozen moisture in the ground. With spring thaws, ground ice melts, creating air pockets and naturally looser soil. In short, Tankersley says, “winter is good for gardens.” Without that rain/freeze/thaw cycle, air spaces can’t form in the soil, so it collapses and compacts, requiring mechanical tilling to loosen it up again.

3. Plants get stressed beyond capacity. In 2012, plants endured an early spring with a late frost, followed by summer and fall drought, and now, snow drought. There’s a real risk of winterkill—the term used when plants succumb to winter conditions. “Check trees and shrubs for buds in early May,” Tankersley suggests, “especially nonnatives like Magnolia soulangeana, which is particularly susceptible to winterkill.” Even well-established, old trees can succumb—forever changing yards and neighborhoods.

What You Can Do to Help Your Garden

On mild days when temperatures are above freezing, Tankersley’s strategies for home gardeners include the following:

1. Mulch. Like a thick blanket, mulch holds in moisture and creates a layer of insulation for soil. Tankersley’s choice in his own yard? Oak leaf mulch. Why? “The leaves decay slowly, so they release nutrients into the soil over time.” Other options: chopped up plant material from your yard (non-diseased, please), or scattered straw.

2. Add native plants in spring. Natives are already naturally adapted to outside-of-the-bell-curve extremes, with some sporting roots 15 to 20 feet deep. Compare that to a typical landscape plant with roots just 6 inches deep.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Goodnight, Roses

Putting roses to sleep for winter

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.

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: