Enabling Garden

The "Enabling Garden" has all elevated growing beds and shows how you can garden

successfully even if you can't kneel down or bend over.  Here is the entrance with

"Pink Pop-Eye" Chrysanthemums and "Bewitched Decorative Kale."

"Pink Pop-Eye Mums," "Intenz Wheat Celosia," and "Bewitched Decorative Kale"

"Enabling Garden" raised beds with "Jade Princess Millet" and "Grapeberry Mums"

Here are two of the raised beds plus large containers which can also be used to grow

flowers and vegetables.  The mums are "Avalon Gold," "Pink Pop-Eye," and "Purple

Grapeberry."  There are also short Sunflowers and Gloriosa Daisies and

Decorative Cabbage.

Raised beds and pots in the Enabling Garden and some pumpkins for Fall.

"Orange Star Dwarf Zinnias."

Ordinary zinnias would be too large and out-of-place here, but today there are dwarf

varieties for almost all flowers, and these work out well.

Pink, purple, gold, and copper flowers and various greens in this bed.  

Also yellow and blue pansies and white alyssum.

"Paradiso Bronze Mums," dark green/black Alumroot, and "Jade Princess

Decorative Millet" (the tall dark accents).  The Gardens used a number of

different types of millet this year to add verticality to gardens.  I think they

were successful.

Mums, Alumroot, and Millet.

They teach classes to  physically challenged people here and show them how to

create and maintain gardens despite handicaps.

"Avalon Gold Garden Mums."

"Gloriosa Daisies" come in varieties with very short stems.

Another part of the Enabling Garden has growing beds at different levels, some four feet high,

to show how you can create variety even on a small patio.  There is a hanging

wall-garden on the left.

"Pink Pop-Eye Garden Mums"

"Grapeberry Mums"

"Avalon Gold Garden Mums" and "Jade Princess Millet" stalks

Some fountains along the path.

"Venus Purple Mums" with just a touch of purple in the petals.

A bush of  "White Diamond "  Panicle Hydrangeas.

"Golden Sneezeweed / Helenium" and "Blue Mystic Spires Salvia."

"Blue Mystic Spires Salvia" and "Orange Sneezeweed/Helenium"

This is the entrance to the Bulb Garden and Aquatic Garden.

"Orange Sneezeweed"

This is right inside the archway entrance to the Bulb Garden and the Aquatic Garden.

These are "Golden Pinwheel Chrysanthemums."

"Golden Pinwheel Mums"

"Guernsey Lily" in the Bulb Garden

 "Pineapple Lily" in the Bulb Garden

"Torch Pink Cane Begonia" was one of many varieties of Begonias in the Gardens.

"Rozanne Cranesbill" is a relative of the geranium.

A bench and fountain under the arbor in the Aquatic Garden.

Small "Yukani Chrysanthemums" above the fountain.  Each year, the Gardens

provide lots of flowers which designers then use in various ways in various gardens.

The same flowers are here used in hanging baskets.  "Yukani Mums" and

"Golden Tickweed."

"Golden Tickweed" and "Yukani Mums" in a hanging basket.

"Pink Power Gomphrena."

"Edith White Daisies" near the lake.

"Sheffield Yellow Garden Mums" near the lake.

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Chicago Botanic 2017

Last weekend I was in Chicago and had a chance to visit the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

There were three special exhibitions: "Brazil in Chicago,"  "Fall Flowers,"  and the

"Illinois Orchid Show and Sale."  You enter the Gardens across this bridge, which is hung

with chrysanthemum blankets of "Firefall Garden Chrysanthemums."

There were also boxes of "Firefall Mums" along the bridge.

And then you come to the Esplanade and the first show, "Brazil in Chicago."

For those of us in South Florida, it looks like our street, but in Chicago, all of these

Brazilian plants are highly exotic and unusual.  The Gardens emphasize plants which

will grow in the Chicago climate, but they also like to show off the fauna of other parts

of the world as well.  Brazil is the most bio-diverse country in the world with more varieties

of plants and animals than any other country.

A series of beds were filled with plants from Brazil.  On the left is Zamia Palm, which feels

like cardboard, then Blue Mexican Sage, Hawaiian Punch Elephant Ears, grayish Bismarck

Palms, and another variety of blue sage.

Bromeliads are one of the most common plants in Brazil and come in many sizes, shapes,

and colors.  This was a colorful chartreuse and wine color.

In the left foreground is a decorative grass, then Bolivian Honeysuckle, behind are Praetoria

Orange Cannas, and then dark Red Leaf Hibiscus.

Hawaiian Punch Elephant Ears / Colocasia are very large leafed plants.

"Miagos" is a bright decorative grass.

"Blue Tango Bromeliad" has pale green leaves and blue and white stalks of flowers.

It is also called the Urn Plant.

Bismark Palms, Hawaiian Punch Elephant Ears, and Mexican Blue Sage.

The tall plants are Bismarck Palm, Praetoria Cannas, and Red Leaf Hibiscus.

Many beds of Brazilian plants.

Then we turn to the left, climb a few stairs, and we are in the Heritage Garden.  This

consists of three waterlily ponds, an open terrace in the center, and a series of sections

around the outside in a circle which feature plants of different parts of the world and of

different plant families.

These are all Bromeliads.  The tower is an armature of steel with sacks of potting soil.  They

punch holes in these and insert the bromeliads of various colors.  The pots in front have

"Yellow Fruit Bromeliads."

Yellow Cannas.  They are planted in pots in the ponds; they will be taken inside

during the winter, although the plants are quite hardy.  My mother always had

splendid red cannas in the front yard in Chicago.

This is "South America."  The blue is "Senorita Rosita Spider Plant" and the copper is

"Autumn Pallette Red Amaranth."  The large leaf is 'Castor Bean."

"Yellow Ornamental Peppers."  These are strictly for looking; they are not edible.

But they are grown in many colors.  These plants were quite large, about three feet high.

"Orange ornamental Peppers."  These are about a foot high.

"Orange Sneezeweed / Helenium" and "Blue Sage."

"Balloon Flowers."  They are a little larger than tennis balls and very soft.

The bush is covered in hundreds of them.  They are in "Africa."

"Red Castor Beans" are also from Africa.

Red Castor Bean.

"Europe" has these "Mohave Orange Strawflowers."

"Deep Raspberry Strawflowers."  These can be dried, and they will stay

colorful all winter in a bouquet.

The section on "Japan" features chrysanthemums. These are "Dolliette Yellow Spider

Cushion Mums."

Magnificent "Lavender Spider Mums" about 7 inches across.

"Yellow Brush Style Spoon Mums."  Look at the edge of each petal, which looks

like a little spoon.

This is the "Japan Bed" with chrysanthemums and in the center "Vanilla Strawberry

Panicle Hydrangeas."

"Vanilla Strawberry Panicle Hydrangeas" and "Lavender Spider Mums."

"Vanilla Strawberry Panicle Hydrangea"

In the center were beds with "Oopsy Daisy Pot Marigolds."

"Orange King" Pot Marigolds were mixed with the yellow "Oopsy Daisy" marigolds. 

The three waterlily ponds were filled with many colors of flowers.  The water is tinted

black to make the flowers stand out, and the flowers are all taken inside for the winter.

Two pale blue waterlilies.  They each bloom for only a day.

This was a beautiful new variety for me, with colors ranging from magenta to pink to peach 

to cream and then to yellow in the center.  In the morning when I arrived, it was still a bud,

but by the time I finished lunch, it was in full bloom.

This also was totally new - a Double White Water Lily.

"Pink Cannas."  Each of the ponds features a different color of cannas.

A visitor in the Gardens.


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