Category Archives: Chicago Botanic Gardens

Today It’s the English Walled Garden

I was going to wrap up my posts from the Chicago Botanic Gardens today, but I have too many photos yet to show you. So,… here is day three, and there will be a day four.

Today, I am going to show you photos from the English Walled Garden. This is perhaps my favorite garden of all; I could easily spend the day here with my knitting basket. It’s a cozy space made up of six rooms, with peaceful nooks for sitting and listening to water sounds, brick walls and walkways, shady apple trees, climbing vines, and pots of scented geraniums. You can even reserve this space for receptions. Here is another link for more information about the English Walled Garden.

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These lilies were in full bloom underneath an apple tree. They caught my eye as they were quite striking being a pearly white with burgundy outlines on the center petals.

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Violas were blooming underneath another tree. A few blue morning glories and clematis were climbing up a trellis.

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Out in the bright sunshine was a plethora of red cosmos as well as happy daisies.

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Pots of scented geraniums lined each side of the many sets of steps. I rubbed the leaves between my fingers and tried to distinguish the different scents. Luckily, the pots had tags as I got many wrong.

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I am used to see cut Gerbera daisies with straws on their stems to keep them upright. These Gerbera daisies had no problems standing up straight at all. They were a vibrant red orange color.

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One of my favorite flowers, tiny lobelia, was growing in pots.

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These delphiniums appeared to be iridescent. They are beautiful, but seem to be so delicate. As I was standing by the flower bed taking these photos, a stem snapped in two.

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I spied quite a few different varieties of apple trees in the English Walled Garden.

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As we were leaving the English Walled Garden we noticed these grapes climbing on the brick walls.

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One thing I realized while visiting this garden is that at one time or another I have grown many of these flowers in my own simple flower gardens.

I hope you enjoyed visiting the English Walled Garden at the Chicago Botanic Gardens with me.

Bye for now!

“Garden Delights” & “Nature’s Surprises”

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I hope you all are having a great summer weekend. We are enjoying beautiful summer weather here in northern Illinois. The humidity is low, the sun is shining, and for July the temperatures are staying on the cooler side.

Yesterday, I got my promised Mother’s Day visit to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. We usually go either at the beginning of the growing season or towards the end in late August, so this time was a little different.

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Today I’ll show you the photos from our first stop at the gardens. Please excuse the quality of my photos; it was a very sunny day. The Butterflies and Blooms exhibit was moved this year, so we actually noticed it and decided to check it out.

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This exhibit is a large screened in enclosure with butterflies flying all around. Flowers that butterflies particularly love are planted everywhere.

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The butterflies will land on you too. I was told that they seem to love white the best. I was wearing a darker colored top, so they left me alone, but landed on my daughter’s shoulder.

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These little feeding stations are set up throughout the exhibit. I think these two are dining on banana.

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The chrysalises are purchased and hung on wooden dowels until the butterflies emerge. Here is one that is almost ready to fly free.

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This visit to the Butterflies and Blooms exhibit at the Chicago Botanic Gardens was perfectly timed (not planned though) to show you Talyssa and Gracie’s new ensembles. I don’t usually make two at the same time for Kaye’s MSDs, but the fabrics are from the same collection and begged to be made into coordinating sets, so I did just that. I hope you like them. By the way, both sets are the same size so can fit both the 17″ and 18″ MSD bodies.

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As you can see, Talyssa found her own butterflies in the garden.

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And Gracie, found a little house wren that she befriended.

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Gracie’s “Nature’s Delights” and Talyssa’s “Garden Surprises” ensembles will be available tonight (July 10, 2016) at 7:00 pm CST, cindyricedesigns.com. Check the “Shop What’s New” page at that time for more details.

A Visit to the Chicago Botanic Gardens

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I’ve professed my love for the Chicago Botanic Gardens in a previous post. Well, we finally made it there today for the first time this year. Since we usually only get there once a year, it’s interesting to mix up the visits as to the time of year. At the end of the summer the vegetable garden is in it’s full glory and it is massive. I kept saying to my daughter, “I wish I lived here.” Today they had a little farmer’s market too, and we were able to buy some of the vegetables grown at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Yum!

As we were walking through the apple orchard we noticed that the trees were bare of fruit, like our apple tree in our backyard. I wrote about our apple tree last year and took pictures of Amelia Thimble climbing around in it. Well, this sign told us why.

I looked up and took this picture of the grapes growing above out heads in the arbor, so pretty against the blue sky. I wanted to pick a bunch and start munching on them, but didn’t…

I brought my Pukipuki Sugar and Izzy with me. We found a pink rosebush that happened to be in the shade while we were still in the vegetable garden. Sugar climbed up and I got a picture of her. The roses match her dress so nicely.