Gardenig in state Illinois. Tips & Guides

Best Budget Garden Tips from Our Readers We asked our readers for their best budget tips for the garden, and they delivered! Tips from our readers for gardening on a budget

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Tips for Growing a Rooftop Garden No green space? No problem! Learn how this Chicago gardener created a beautiful rooftop garden in the city. Smart tips for a successful rooftop garden

I prefer to top-dress my flower beds while my perennials are napping safely underground, but I often find myself doing this while the plants are up. That chore is made much easier with a 58-ounce cast-aluminum scoop. It’s small enough to maneuver among plants but holds enough compost, mulch, or—as shown here—composted wood chips to cover real estate quickly. Lastly, it leaves a hand free to hold plants aside while I’m applying the product.

Today’s photos are from Nicki Snoblin in Lake Bluff, Illinois. We’ve visited their garden before (Nicki’s New Garden Project and Fall in Nicki’s Garden ) and today Nicki is sharing some foliage plants that they love.

We’re in Yorkville, Illinois, visiting with Anita Drendel again. We saw some photos of her garden in the GPOD recently, and she’s back to share more of her favorites from the past few years.

DANVILLE, ILLINOIS — An elementary school was razed to the ground In 2006. The school was 92 years old and named after Stephen Douglas who debated Lincoln in the adjacent city park in 1858. Many Vermilion County Master Gardeners are retired teachers who wanted to maintain the site as an educational venue. Partnering with the city of Danville and local organizations, these ambitious Master Gardener/teachers formed a committee and created a community garden. Now the old school is fondly commemorated in the garden with a permanent plaque.

We’re visiting with Anita Drendel today.

Nicki Snoblin in Lake Bluff, Illinois, found a wonderful little treasure to share with us.

Today we’re visiting with Rachel, a gardener and artist living in Elgin, Illinois (Zone 5b). She moved in 2022 to 1.5 acres and is in the process of designing and planting a fabulous front garden. She’s also diving into forest restoration for the back half-acre—making it beautiful for wildlife and her kiddos.

It’s time to grab that sweatshirt and dig out those heavier socks—fall has arrived! Although it’s sad to see summer go, we’re getting super excited for the new season around here. The native plants in New England (where our podcast is based) are starting to look especially lovely so we’ve dedicated this show to them. We’ve got an array of native woodies that bloom or color up in autumn (Danielle) and a few perennials that save their best for September (Carol). Don’t worry—we’re not just featuring plants native to the eastern seaboard either, we’ve got some Midwest wonders and even some Southern charmers in the mix as well. Looking for some native plants that please the local ecology and look beautiful doing it? We’ve got you covered on this latest episode.

Illinois State Flower is known for its unpretentious yet captivating nature, making it a symbol of Illinois’ natural splendor and historical legacy. Through this article, we delve into the intricate facets of this charming flower, uncovering its botanical attributes, historical significance, and propagation methods.

Today we’re back in the Forest Park, Illinois, garden of Enrique Zuniga and Christian Altman, a space they transformed from a blank piece of turfgrass into a beautiful garden that attracts pollinators and is enjoyed by them, their three dogs, and their friends alike. We saw some of the garden yesterday and are back to enjoy more of it today.

A quick way to clean the algae out of a garden water feature after a long, dark, and wet winter is to use a power washer. It only takes a few minutes to dislodge the long mats of algae, and the low volume of water that blows out of the nozzle doesn’t disturb even the smallest of rocks. Start at the top of where the water flows and work your way down to the bottom of the feature. This is a lot easier and more effective than grabbing the strands by hand and then using a brush to clean the rest away. You can see the difference in these “before” and “after” photos. I enjoy this a lot more than power washing the patio.

My name is Enrique Zuniga. My husband, Christian Altman, our three dogs, and I live in Forest Park, Illinois (Zone 5b), which is located just west of downtown Chicago. Both Christian and I have had a love of gardening since we were children, but we fully tapped into our inner gardener when we were presented with the opportunity to work with a yard full of turf grass when we moved to our current house in 2017. The vast majority of the yard gets full sun, so we decided to remove large patches of turf grass and plant sun-loving perennials that are mostly native to Illinois.

Illinois has a wonderful biodiversity. It is the habitat to many species of plants that harmoniously live and adapt to each other. This article will provide a Complete List Of Illinois Native Plants. Jump right in and lets start this journey!

Vicki is sharing her garden with us today.

From trying cottage cheese ice cream to adding protein powder and bananas to morning coffee, the internet is ablaze with protein hacks lately—but Trader Joe’s just announced a bit of extra protein in its Unexpected Broccoli Cheddar Soup that you may not want to try.

Everyone loves falafel—it’s a year-round staple, and the frozen options at Trader Joe’s make it incredibly easy to prepare. But today, you should probably rid your freezer shelves of any Trader Joe’s falafel: In the company’s third food recall this week, on July 28 Trader Joe’s recalled its fan-favorite Fully Cooked Falafel after being informed by the supplier that rocks were found in the food.

References to pumpkins date back many centuries. Native Americans dried strips of pumpkin and wove them into mats. They also roasted long strips of pumpkin on the open fire and ate them. The origin of pumpkin pie occurred when the colonists sliced off the pumpkin top, removed the seeds, and filled the insides with milk, spices and honey. The pumpkin was then baked in hot ashes. University of Illinois Extension

First, the disclaimer. I know I said the plant is specifically Pinus strobus ‘Nana,’ and that’s how mine came to me, but here’s the wrinkle: ‘Nana’ is kind of a grab-bag name for many relatively compact- or mounded-growing Eastern white pines, a long-needled species native to Eastern North America, from Canada to Georgia and out to Ohio and Illinois.Today, you can shop for named varieties that are really compact, with distinctive and somewhat more predictable shapes, like‘Coney Island’ or ‘Blue Shag’ (to name two cultivars selected by the late Sydney Waxman at the University of Connecticut, who had a particular passion for this species).I could have pinched the tips of the new growth, or candles, by half each year to keep

Now before you go thinking dirty thoughts about my wood frog friends up in the top photo, who by the way quack like ducks to my ear, know this:They are simply engaged in amplexus (doesn’t that sound tame and scientific?), in which the male (in this species the smaller frog) clasps the larger female around the back. This goes on for some time, and they don’t seem to be one bit shy. The embrace began right out at poolside, where 15 other frogs were sunning themselves, including the few in the background of the photo below. Eventually the

Andrew, who is now assistant director of the Chicago Botanic Garden, is past president of Magnolia Society International’s board of directors, and remains a member of the society’s board. In his tenure over 20 years as curator at Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, Andrew built the magnolia collection from about 50 to more than 200 cultivars. That’s a lot of magnolias.Now Andrew Bunting is author of a book on the queen of flowering trees, called “The Plant Lover’s Guide to Magnolias,” just out from Timber Press as part of an ongoing series on various distinctive genera of plants.We talked magnolias on my public-radio show and podcast. Read along while you listen in to the April 25, 2016 edition of the podcast using the player below (or at this link)–and even learn how to train a magnolia or any w

Just to be clear: I love herbaceous peonies, or P. lactiflora, the blowsy, fragrant lovelies of most late-spring gardens. But I don’t grow them in my mixed borders; I relegate them to a cutting area, where I have enough for many, many vases-full (but not even one-twentieth of the number Martha has!). I might have 25 plants, all of them from our old friends the Klehms in Illinois, and they’ll bloom in another couple of weeks. But what I am loving at the moment in the garden (not the vase) are peonies the way nature made them.Paeonia mlokosewitschii, more easily referred to as Molly the Witch, is a beautiful pale yellow, and enjoys a spot in a shady, woodland garden. My very big, old plant of nearly a decade ago, purchased at an auction at a bot

I knew my garlic mustard from lamb’s quarters or mugwort, wild grape from bittersweet or Ampelopsis, oxalis from everything else. But clearweed kept me in the dark longer than most. I could have guessed at its common name, since the stems are practically translucent, or clear. And no wonder I have so much of it: It favors moist soils such as mine generally is, and shady and semi-shady spots in or near woodlands such as the one I garden on the edge of.The USDA conservation map show the presence of Pilea pumila in 38 states, and parts of eastern Canada. The Flora of North America (efloras [dot] org) says that Native Americans used clearweed medicinally, “to alleviate itching, to cure sinus problems, and to treat excessive hunger.” The Illinois Wildflowers website notes that certain native insects use the plant, too. All these years, the only thing I thought it was useful for? To aggravate me.Turns out various caterpillars of moths and butterflies enjoy it as a host plant (they’re listed here and include the comma and the red admiral), and so my new policy is t

Stylophorum is a poppy relative, a member of the family Papaveraceae (as the distinctive orange-gold-colored sap will tell you if you break a stem or leaf). This Zone 4-9 self-sowing perennial is native to moist woodlands and stream banks of Eastern and Central North America, growing to a foot to 18 inches tall (the flowers soar above the basal rosette of leaves). Unlike some plants that seed themselves around, this one’s easy to pull out—no nasty rhizomes that stay behind.The big gold flowers appear mostly in April-May but then repeat all season (unless the plant’s in too dry and hot a spot, when it may even go dormant). Even the foliage is nice: a fresh-looking blue-green and so textural with its beautifully lobed shape, plus undersides that flash with white.And then there are those seedpods that got me started in the first place with this plant. (The ones in the photo below are just starting to ripen and

By the time I met the Chuck, Matt and Joe Heidgen 17-plus years ago, when we were  working on the former Martha Stewart garden line at K-Mart, I at least already knew that when I said Geranium that I actually meant Pelargonium, because that’s the genus our annual geraniums actually are in. But I didn’t know that one could look, and smell, nothing like Grandma’s old standards, and perform roles in the garden she’d never imagined.Today Joe Heidgen, with his brother Matt, runs the business called Shady Hill Gardens—both garden center (below) and mail-order specialists–that their father founded in Batavia 40 years ago. It’s now in Elburn, Illinois (an hour or so west of Chicago). For more than 30 years, Shady Hill has gained a national reputation as Pelargonium specialists, breeding and propagating every color, shape, size and scent imaginable (and then some). And good news: they sell them mail-order, too.Li

Westwood (below, right, in the lab) directs the Global Tree Conservation Program at the arboretum, which strives to save threatened trees from extinction through collaborations with botanical gardens and universities, and others in China, Europe, and Mexico, as well as throughout the U.S. She has a particular interest in oaks—including a number of American species in trouble—which we also talked about.Read along as you listen to the Nov. 6, 2017 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).emerald ash borer and threatened oaks,with morton’s dr. murphy westwoodQ. Before we get started on trees in trouble, I believe I read that in 2015, the Morton Arboretum had its first millionth annual visitor tally. Is that correct?A. That’s rig

Besides being an arboretum and public garden, The Morton is a world-class 1,700-acre research center, conservation and education organization, and it’s preparing to mark its centennial in 2022.Last year, 17,000 questions arrived by phone, email, or in person at the plant clinic, questions representing consumers from 48 states. Julie is a former landscape designer who has managed the arboretum’s free plant clinic for three years, after volunteering there for five years before that.

Today we’re in Lake Bluff, Illinois, visiting Nicki Snoblin’s garden.

A dusty Nick Stanek stepped off his tractor after an evening of round baling hay.

DR. JAMES NARDI says you can tell a lot about a tree by the company it keeps. From life in the soil around their roots to the action up in their canopies, trees are swarming with engagement—unseen microbes and fungi, countless insects and other arthropods, and vertebrates like birds, squirrels, and even porcupines.

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Cooking over a live fire is nothing new. In fact, it’s exactly how early civilizations made protein safer and more delicious to consume. While the invention of grilling took place an estimated 780,000 years ago, your grilling recipes and techniques need to stay stuck in the dark ages.

When Stephanie Waddell, founder of Colorado-based Istoria Interior Design, moved from Chicago to Boulder with her husband, Greg, and her young son, Ames, she was looking for the kind of mountain-adjacent life that makes people fall in love with the West. She wanted a home with room for her family to grow, with great views of the surrounding landscape, a layout designed for entertaining friends in the close-knit community, and the expansive feeling of open space that fosters a connection with nature. They found a 1970s-era modern house on a double lot in a great neighborhood, with a Japanese-influenced garden that had been written up in the local press when it was first designed.