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

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 :)