Spring has Sprung!

Tuning into the growing season is a great way to stay grounded during the spring months.

Here are a couple ideas for getting in the groove of gardening. Remember even if you’re caring for houseplants or growing a couple container tomatoes, having a relationship with plants can help us adjust to the changing seasons and lower our stress levels. Getting some sunshine helps too :)

Windy City Harvest Plant Sale – Saturday May 11

Windy City Harvest is excited to announce our upcoming community event, Spring Sprout, which will be held on May 11, 2024, 11am – 4pm, at the Farm on Ogden in North Lawndale (3555 W Ogden Ave Chicago IL 60623) in conjunction with our annual Plant Sale.

We will have annual vegetable and flower starts for sale, free food (while supplies last), a community resources fair, live music, and tours of Farm on Ogden. We would love to see you all there!

As the Chicago Botanic Garden’s urban agriculture program, Windy City Harvest is making a difference in communities on the West and South Sides of Chicago. By focusing on growing food, improving health, and creating job opportunities, we're helping build strong, vibrant neighborhoods that thrive.

If you have any questions you can reach out to: bcalendo@chicagobtoanic.org

Spring Flower Show: Showers of Flowers

Join us this spring for Showers of Flowers, the 2026 spring flower show at the Garfield Park Conservatory. “Showers of Flowers” highlights more than 80 hanging baskets that demonstrate vertical possibilities for your green thumb! The baskets will feature trailing vines, like ivy and sweet potato, bushy asparagus ferns, and colorful flowers like pansies, petunia, and calibrachoa. Let the beauty rain down upon you while you enjoy ground plantings, including seasonal favorites such as daffodils, tulips, lupines, cymbidium orchids, astilbe, snapdragons, and ranunculus, against a backdrop of azaleas, camellias, and hydrangea.

Garfield Park Conservatory

It's back... and it's groovy

The Orchid Show is back at Chicago Botanic Gardens. This year’s theme is Feeling Groovy.

We had such a nice time at the India Blooms Orchid Show last year, and we’re looking forward to this year’s display.

Also check out Orchids After Hours for Valentine’s Day or one of their new silent discos :)

Orchids After Hours

5 to 8 p.m.

NEW! Silent Disco: Feb. 21 & Mar. 21
Slip on wireless headphones, choose your channel, and groove to the era’s hits.

The Orchid Show

February 7 – March 22, 2026
Daily, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Let the sunshine in

Member Tickets

Nonmember Tickets

Ticket Exchange

Rewind to the ‘60s and ‘70s at the Orchid Show: Feelin’ Groovy where 10,000 vibrant orchids are the hottest thing since bell bottoms. Floor-to-ceiling sunbeams made of cascading orchids light up the room in living color. Lose yourself in a 10-foot lava lamp aglow with colorful blooms, then hit the road as a flower-filled Volkswagen Beetle carries you through a Route 66 daydream. The experience is pure good vibes.

Members’ Preview

Join us February 6 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. for an exclusive, after-hours first look at this year’s Orchid Show, featuring free light bites, a cash bar, and live music. Separate ticket required.

Buy tickets now

Garden trends for 2026

If one of your new year’s resolutions is to start a garden, or if you’re just dreaming about your garden in the spring, Chicago Botanic Garden has some amazing resources for home gardeners.

Nina Koziol dives into what’s hot for this year’s gardens. It’s never too early to start planning, and the Garden offers Super Seed Saturday (a seed swap) and the Lenhardt Seed Library to get you started.

Check out more in the Smart Gardener Series.

Upcoming events at Chicago Botanic Garden

Check out these upcoming events at Chicago Botanic Garden. Lightscape is always spectacular this time of year, especially since we have some snow.

Happy Holidays!

Wednesday Wind Down Series at Garfield Park Conservatory

Check out this new series at the Conservatory in Garfield Park! A great way to enrich your life with relaxation and meeting like-minded people.

Flowers and Their Meanings

Did you know that the colors and types of flowers that we give each other and plant have historically had meanings? Some are still used today - red roses for love and white for mourning…

In this book by Karen Azoulay, she goes into the history and meaning of many blooms. Interesting to think of when you’re planning your garden, or giving Mom a Mothers’ Day Bouquet :)

Flowers and Their Meanings

The Secret Language and History of Over 600 Blooms (A Flower Dictionary)

By Karen Azoulay

From Penguin Random House:

“Uncover the secret meanings behind your bouquets and floral arrangements with this stunningly illustrated exploration of the Victorian language of flowers, including the multicultural history, rituals, and mythology behind over 600 flowers, herbs, and trees.

In the Victorian language of flowers, hundreds of blooms were ascribed specific meanings based on folklore, science, and ancient history. Page through this botanical encyclopedia to learn each flower’s Victorian meaning (ranunculus, for example, boldly states, “I am dazzled by your charms,” while marigold represents despair), common names, and cultural history. There is also an index of the flowers grouped by theme, should you want to challenge your local florist to create a coded message for a loved one.

The study of floriography can be used by readers to decode hidden messages in beloved novels like The Age of Innocence or speculate as to why two canary-yellow roses—which signify jealousy and infidelity—were featured in Diana Spencer’s wedding bouquet. You might share some honeysuckle (meaning “bonds of love”) with a friend or partner as a gesture of commitment. Or perhaps you’ll choose a celebratory bouquet of angelica (“inspiration”) and purple columbine (“resolved to win”) for a friend who has triumphed over something difficult. 

Karen Azoulay pairs nineteenth century botanical drawings with electric photography, creating a one-of-a-kind flower dictionary with a contemporary, artful feel. With a foreword by Kate Bolick and a helpful sentiment-based index, Flowers and Their Meanings is both a beautiful volume and a practical guide to incorporating the language of flowers into your own life.

India Blooms at Chicago Botanic Garden

We had such an excellent time at the India Blooms show at Chicago Botanic Garden. We went as a supplement to our Sacral Chakra Mandala workshop because local artist Indira Freitas Johnson was working with a team of volunteers to create a rangoli installation made of flower parts and petals.

“It comes from the tradition of a woman who paints or draws a very simple pattern on the threshold of her home,” said artist Indira Freitas Johnson, who grew up in Mumbai. 

“It’s done early in the morning to welcome the day and bring blessings on her family. During the day, people walk over it, and it’s obliterated. She does it again the next day.”

Like mandala making, this practice can be methodical and detailed, and some would say, meditative.

It certainly was mesmerizing to look at all these pictures of Orchids, mysterious and intriguing as they are. You start to see other things in the shapes of the flowers and are taken in by the bold colors.

I hope you enjoy this burst of colors at the start of Spring. Visit the Orchid Gallery for views of the Rangoli construction.

The Art and Ritual of Rangoli

Chicago Botanic Garden

Reach out to Maria at Green Thumb for more information :)

Still Working in the Winter

During the last Ahimsa Warrior Workshop, we were marveling at what Nature does during the wintertime. Under the soil, lots of things are happening, even during the frigid temperatures.

Chicago Botanic Garden does extensive research on mushrooms and fungi. Their underground mycelium networks are why so many plants and trees can thrive throughout the seasons.

Here is an excerpt from the conservation group at the Garden about fungi:

Why Care about Fungi?

The Chicago area is host to more than a thousand species of mushrooms and mushroom like fungi—beneficial, symbiotic organisms, critical to the survival of our forests and grasslands. Some are edible, while others are toxic to humans. Yet, like native plants and animals, fungi are threatened by land use change, pollution, and climate change.

Meet a Major Multitasker

First, many fungi are nature’s most effective recyclers and decomposers. Without them, we would be buried miles deep in dead leaves and logs.

Other fungi are plant pathogens. In large forests that extend miles, older trees die to make way for new trees—it is a natural part of the life cycle. Forest fungi help this regeneration to take place.

Finally, many mushrooms and similar fungi form beneficial symbioses with trees such as pines and oaks termed mycorrhiza (Greek for fungus root). Neither plant nor fungus can survive without the other. Trees provide energy in the form of sugars to fungi. In exchange, fungi, with huge underground networks (the above-ground portion we see is just the tip of the iceberg), carry water, vitamins, and nutrients like phosphorous and nitrogen to the tree—even in drought conditions. In some cases, fungi's rootlike structures bind together like a strong cable and network several plants together so plants may share a limited nutrient or water supplies. As climate change impacts available water sources and cause other plant stress, this relationship will become even more important.

Mycologists (fungus scientists) have discovered only about 5 percent of the species that exist, and of those, only around 5 percent form these essential symbiotic relationships with trees. We need to preserve them so we can find out if more “power fungi” are hiding among the yet-to-be-discovered species. As conditions become more stressful for plants, we need these fungi to help plants survive. Thus, the need to study and conserve them.

What can you do to protect fungi in your own backyard?  Avoid over-tilling soil (fungal networks are generally found down to approximately nine inches deep). Avoid fertilizer where possible and use native plants. Fertilizer diminishes fungal diversity, while native plants host a wider diversity.

Fun(gi) Facts

$$ fungi: Ever wonder why some mushrooms (e.g., truffles, chanterelles, and morels) are so expensive—as much as several thousand dollars per pound? It is very difficult, if not impossible, to cultivate these fungi. So, each mushroom relies on the intricate symbiotic relationship between tree and fungus, plus soil and weather conditions. And, since they are found underground, they must be sniffed out by a trained dog or pig and picked by hand.

Fungi food: Imagine a world without beer, bread, wine, miso soup, pizza and even soy sauce—all made possible because of friendly fungi.

Rx fungi: Some types of fungi—penicillin and other antibiotics (infection fighter), and cyclosporins (anti organ rejection drugs)—are used around the world to fight disease and enable life saving organ transplants . Statins, drugs used to control blood cholesterol levels, were first isolated from fungi. Other types of fungi treat rheumatism, epilepsy, and gout; they staunch rapid blood flow, and may even battle cancer and heart disease!

Fungal weed control: Some fungi provide natural weed and pest control and can be used in your garden instead of chemical alternatives.

Fungi work in winter: Since they generate their own heat, their important decomposition work continues even when the mercury dips below freezing.

Glow in the dark fungi: Fungi can make their own light! Some species of mushrooms are bioluminescent, emitting eerie glows all the time (the glow can only be seen at night).     

Note: It is safest to forage for fungi in the fruits and vegetable aisle, not the forest. If you do collect in the wild, be aware of and follow rules for collecting at that site, e.g., collecting fungi is not allowed on any forest preserve property in the greater Chicago region.

https://www.chicagobotanic.org/conservation/fungi

Trees for 2050

In August we shared the challenges Chicago trees have been facing due to the Emerald Ash Borer.

Here’s a little from Andrew Bell, Curator of woody plants at Chicago Botanic Gardens, about their new project to plant trees that will stand the test of time.

“A living museum presents special challenges to its curators.

At the Chicago Botanic Garden, we not only acquire and display our collections, but we must also keep them alive and healthy. As curator of the Garden’s collection of woody plants, I’m responsible for the welfare of more than 13,000 trees. Disease, infestations, and extreme weather events are the kinds of things that keep me awake at night.

If you have recently lost a tree to emerald ash borer, you may wish to view our short list of ash replacement selections. Our full list of suggested trees for adaptive planting is linked below.

As you may know, the Garden is undertaking a ten-year plan to remove about 400 trees due to the emerald ash borer. It’s up to me to suggest suitable replacements to continue our tree legacy. To do so, I first needed to know which of the trees now growing in the Garden would continue to thrive in a warming urban environment. Thanks to a $120,000 research grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, we’ve been able to undertake an adaptive planting study to identify which trees will continue to thrive in Chicago’s urban forests under worst-case carbon-emissions scenarios.

Climate-change modeling indicates that some trees—those currently growing at the northern edge of their hardiness—will actually do a little bit better in slightly warmer conditions around 2020, but by 2050, ten of the 50 trees under study—20 percent—will no longer find the metropolitan area a welcoming habitat. The real concern sets in when we look at the data for 2080, which projects that only 11 of the initial trees would continue to do well in Chicago and the upper Midwest.

The trees growing along our city streets, parks, residences, and public gardens enhance the quality of metropolitan living and also play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The cooling summer leaf canopy reduces our energy needs, and the trees themselves store significant amounts of carbon.

Our adaptive planting study suggests two key calls to action: drastically reducing carbon emission to slow climate change and help protect existing trees, and carefully selecting the trees we plant for future generations. To help both public officials and private property owners in their tree selections, the Garden has created an Adaptive Planting page on our website. There you’ll find information on a selection of 60 suitable trees for 2050.”

Night of 1,000 Jack-o'-Lanterns

The fall season is upon us, and there are many ways we can capture the wonder of the season.

If you’re in the Chicagoland area, the Chicago Botanic Garden puts on an amazing Halloween event called Night of 1,000 Jack-o'-Lanterns:

“Enjoy a frightfully fun fall evening. Dare to experience the Garden after hours. This year’s professionally carved pumpkins feature recreations of popular album covers, haunted tales from Chicago, eerie cartoons, and more to get you in the Halloween spirit. You'll find costumed entertainers and live pumpkin-carving demos along our paved outdoor path, as well as seasonal fare and drinks available for purchase. It’s (slightly) sinister fun for all.” ~ CBG

Also nice to think about around this time of year is getting tickets for the Holiday events happening at Chicago Botanic Garden, Morton Arboretum and Lincoln Park Zoo. Making memories with your loved ones helps bring warmth to the winter months.

Chicago Botanic Garden Night of 1,000 Jack-o’-Lanterns

Lightscape at Chicago Botanic Garden

Illumination at Morton Arboretum

Zoo Lights at Lincoln Park Zoo

Community Artwork

At the Grace Street block party this year we painted this amazing piece of community artwork.

People of all ages and artistic abilities participated, and it came together in a really beautiful way. Creating artwork together is a great way to connect with others, have fun and create something incredible.

Remember, all you need is a bit of canvas and some paint or some chalk and a sidewalk to create a memorable, meaningful experience for the kids and neighbors in your community.

Also, if you’re interested in connecting and healing with others through artwork, check out the Ahimsa Warrior Workshops at Wabi Sabi Space. They occur monthly and are available through Zoom.

Trees and Snags

Many of you may have noticed the mass planting of trees happening in Chicago this year. These trees are replacements for the trees we lost due to the Emerald Ash Borer, a highly destructive beetle.

You can read more about it here:

https://www.chicagobotanic.org/plantinfo/emerald_ash_borer

Not only is it devastating to lose the canopy of our trees, but removal of the ash trees prevented their trunks and branches from becoming snags, an integral part of our urban wildlife.

From the National Wildlife Federation:

“Dead trees provide vital habitat for more than 1,000 species of wildlife nationwide. They also count as cover and places for wildlife to raise young in the requirements for Certified Wildlife Habitat designation.

Snags - The name for dead trees that are left upright to decompose naturally.

Logs - When a snag (or part of a snag) falls on the ground, it becomes a log—also very useful for wildlife habitat.

By some estimates, the removal of dead material from forests can mean a loss of habitat for up to one-fifth of the animals in the ecosystem.”

Read more here:

https://www.nwf.org/Garden-for-Wildlife/Cover/Trees-and-Snags

As a city, we are slowly recovering from this invasive species, and learning the importance of all of the life cycle of trees. If you’re in Chicago, say hello to our new trees! And let them know how much they’re appreciated.

Home Garden Inspiration & Cicadas!

I’d like to share with you some ideas for companion planting.Whether you are working in your own yard, a community garden or in pots in your apartment, these tried and true pairings help your garden grow.

Also, if you are in Illinois and the surrounding areas, check out this cool cicada information:

https://www.chicagobotanic.org/blog/news/cicada_buzz

https://www.facebook.com/groups/7338610306220982/

In Bloom

As we welcome Spring, with the rain and the leaves and flowers unfurling, I’d like to share a resource of mine for inspiration, gardening tips, and getting in touch with nature.

Garden Stories from Chicago Botanic Gardens. Jump in any of these topics and discover just how magical the natural world can be:

How-To

Learning

News

Plants & Gardening

Science & Conservation

Wildlife

 

Happy Earth Day!

As the trees start to spring into growth once again and the flowers stretch out their petals, we celebrate the Earth in all her forms. Take a moment outside to appreciate the beauty of nature and feel the renewal that is happening.

Much love,

Green Thumb

Welcome Spring and Bloom

Just like the sprouting plants making their way through a growing season, we all have our own collection of challenges that fill our days, and hopefully we find a corresponding stack of solutions to make it through victoriously.

I decided to take note of the spring storms I faced as a human and also collected visual snapshots of the strength and beauty blooming in nature that helped inspire me as I made my way toward the smiles.

I compiled the following shortlist that includes a handful of common plants paired with symbolic meanings. This list comes in handy when I find myself struggling to find the right words to adequately share meaningful feelings, express deep gratitude, alter a vibe, spruce up an atmosphere, inspire creativity, manifest positivity, or whatever the case may be. Because sometimes when words don’t work, flowers actually do!

Happy Valentine's Day from Green Thumb

Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be about romance…spend time with the people, places and activities you love this Valentine’s and bring some joy to your heart!

Resolution Inspiration

“The first step in changing is choosing.”

— Maria Ciaccio of Green Thumb

Inspiration from Green Thumb

Sometimes it’s just nice to have something beautiful to look at. This piece is called “Fruit Tree” and reminds me of the abundance and celebration of the season. It’s also a great reminder to support your local artists and shops this holiday. Having something handmade or crafted brings nourishment to your soul and the hearts of others. Happy Holidays!