The Chicago Botanic Garden consists of 27 different gardens on 385 acres: the Rose
Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Bulb Garden, etc. I was there for a visit a couple
of weeks ago. This is the Crescent Garden looking over the lake to the
Vegetable Garden.
The Crescent Garden consists of eight large crescent-shaped flower beds filled
with 28,000 bulbs. There are orange and yellow and black and red and green
and purple flowers, which last for 10-14 days. There are Early, Middle, and Late
Tulips, so planting the various types allows you to get sometimes three weeks
of tulips blooming.
The colors this year were particularly bright and vibrant. The boxwood hedges had a
very bad winter and did not survive. They are being replaced.
"El Nino" tulips in various shades of orange, "Queen of the Night" black tulips,
"Smile" yellow tulips, red "King's Blood" tulips.
The Crescent Garden overlooks the lake with several areas for sitting and enjoying the view.
The beds around the entrance emphasized purple and orange. These are orange
ranunculus / Persian Buttercups, with purple pansies below and purple Stock above.
Orange Azaleas in pots with purple lupine.
Orchid Ranunculus, Orange Icelandic Poppies, and Purple Stock
Orchid Ranunculus and Purple Pansies and Orange Horned Violas
A beautiful bed at the entrance with "Purple Delight" Tulips, Orange "Margarita" double
tulips, orange azaleas, purple Stock.
In the background are white Flowering Crabapple Trees, which were in bloom
all over the Garden and all over the city of Chicago.
A pot and a bed of orange and purple.
Apple Tree Espalier on wall, Orange Ranunculus and Icelandic Poppies and Orchid Ranunculus
Orange Ranunculus / Persian Buttercups and lavender wallflower
A mix of orange and purple
Purple Ranunculus and Orange "Margarita" Double Tulips and Orange Horned Violas
Orange and Purple "Margarita" Double Tulips and "Purple Delight" Lily-form Tulips
Early Yellow Bidens in the Heritage Garden
Yellow Pocketbook Flowers and Red Calibrachoa/Mini-Petunias
Heritage Garden
Yellow Pocketbook Flowers; each is a puffy little pocketbook.
Blue and White Bi-Color Cineraria
Basket-of-Gold Mustard Plant
"Ritz Blue Scabiosa" / "Pincushion" Flower
"Tangerine Horned Violas"
"Sir Winston Churchill" Double White Narcissus
Bed of "Sir Winston Churchill" Double White Narcissus
Spring was very cold and wet in Chicago, so all flowers were delayed. When the sun
and warmth came, they bloomed more profusely than ever - while I was there.
I usually miss the daffodils and narcissus, but this year I saw them all.
Orchid Poppy Anemones, a particularly beautiful spring flower with lovely green foliage.
Orchid Poppy Anemones
The Heritage Garden contains the water lily ponds, which are not yet stocked, and has a
number of planters on the plaza. These are "Rose Foxglove."
Fountain in Heritage Garden, with tall Foxglove and low blue Horned Violas
Purple, Pink, and White Dalmatian Foxglove
A pot of Pink and White Ranunculus, White Bacopa, and Blue Violets
A pot of yellow and white Persian Buttercups / Ranunculus
Blue Horned Violas
Orange Calendula / Pot Marigold
"Spicy Orange Rose" Nemesia
"Spicy Orange Rose Nemesia"
"Spicy Orange Rose" Nemesia and White "Bacopa"
White Bacopa
Yellow Chinese Lupine
A visitor in the Ranunculus and Orchid Poppy Anemones
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