The south side of the Museum of Science and Industry with part of the Jackson Park Lagoon and cherry blossom branches in the foreground,
A vibrant green weeping willow in the distance surrounded by trees not yet leafed out with people on a trail in front of it.
Close up of a cherry blossom flower
A line of cherry blossoms with the Jackson Park lagoon in the foreground,
Jackson Park #UrbsInHorto
Any Chicago inaturalist folks here? Excited to get back out and scout out plants. There are no weeds just plants we haven't met yet. #urbsinhorto
A small grey and brown Cattle dog in a harness waiting at the corner of the deadwood fence looking back at the three front beds while I tried to fit them all in.
The Center Strip bed filling out with beautiful bulb foliage and small flowers and tiny baby basal foliage.
Another view of the Parkway bed from the opposite side framed by the other deadwood fence. Definitely more green than brown as the leaf litter is covered by new growth.
The bed directly in front of the house with another short deadwood pile to keep the plants off the stepping stones that I use to fight back the neighbor’s invasive ivies. The bed itself is filled with small yellow tulips and emerging cream tulips, again covering the leaf litter with new green growth.
Another snapshot of the front beds from this week. So much changes every day, except for #WeAreAllZoey being bored when the agenda is deadheading faded tulips and not sniffing neighborhood pee-mail sites.
#gardening #bloomscrolling #NativePlants #UrbsInHorto #Chicago #GardenDogs #DogsOfBluesky 🌱
Boop! Today I found 2nd Packera obovata happy, healthy & full of buds, across sidewalk from its partner on Parkway, in the bed in front of house. So soon we’ll be feeding even more #pollinators in our tough part sun beds.
#gardening #bloomscrolling #NativePlants #SmallJoys #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Here’s another less excellent pic of Woodpecker (which Mr. CMG has now certified a Hairy male) from across the street enjoying a different fresh cut instead of peeling the bark back himself with his headbanging. Plus big horizontal bowl of trunk crotch rot.
#birds #gardening #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
A small grey and brown Cattle Dog with laser-pointed folded ears stares mesmerized like a statue at a city Robin hopping along the curb looking for snacks who is not impressed. Doggo casts a sharp morning shadow and has a jauntily upturned floofy white tail tip.
Birdy & the Beast.
#gardening #GardenDogs #WeAreAllZoey #DogsOfBluesky #ACDLife #birds #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
City tree guy shrugged when I asked them why them didn’t take more dead wood off neighbor’s sickly tree (gaping wounds at crotch & log-sized branches that have come down on #Bluesky days). Well at least I got to see this Woodpecker enjoying bug buffet today. #birds #gardening #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Hiding in the center of a grounded bulb foliage, a clump of small round leaves surrounding taller stems with completely different toothed foliage on the stem and clusters of dark-tipped buds soon to bloom.
I see you hiding in there, you beautiful newly established Packera obovata. An #UrbsInHorto #Chicago part shade Parkway hero in the making….
#gardening #bloomscrolling #NativePlants #SmallJoys 🌱
Very thick waxy foliage with rich green ridging splashed with glittering raindrops and collecting a small pool of water at the center.
#FantasticFoliage in the rain has the added bonus of creating little drinking cups for our #pollinators and #birds.
#gardening #bloomscrolling #UrbsInHorto #Chicago #ecosystem #NoSpray 🌱
Green leaves tipped and backed with purple in little groups with clusters of tiny purple buds peeking out all over.
Could Mertensia virginica (Virginia Bluebells) *BE* any more beautiful? The greens and purples of the #FantasticFoliage are already so elegant but the little purple bud clusters peeking through take it to perfection.
#gardening #NativePlants #bloomscrolling #FlowerReport #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
A gravelly mess between our bins and the neighbors starting to show signs of green plants emerging with a chainlink gate behind it covered in brown Clematis vines from the previous year.
Closeup of small green plants including natives and discards like the yellow daylilies from my original tear planting to see if anything would grow in the cracks. With annual Tithonia in the mix last year, the amount of #bees, #wasps, & #butterflies that visited just this area is exceptional.
The greening continues behind the bin and along the garage apron with flowering plants to fill in and some more ideas planned to add this season. Plus some heavy concrete bricks to prevent the garbage men from pushing the cart back over the plants, though they’re usually pretty respectful of them once they’re up. Who doesn’t appreciate a bit of surprise beauty in their everyday workplace?
Alley Patch is waking up. Our tiny #UrbsInHorto #Chicago garden means we can’t waste an inch of #pollinators habitat. So garbage bins are surrounded by #NativePlants Pycnanthemum muticum & tenuifolium, Oligoneuron rigidum, Grindelia lanceolata, maybe Asclepias plus some other stowaways. #gardening 🌱
Pointy fans of Hydrophyllum, climbing towers of Pycnanthemum, shapely curves of Stylophorum and more.
So much happening in this tiny #UrbsInHorto #Chicago Parkway still life. #NativePlants Hydrophyllum virginianum (Virginia Waterleaf), Stylophorum diphyllum (Celadine Poppy), & Pycnanthemum muticum (Hoary Mountain Mint) plus more surprises to come.
#gardening #bloomscrolling #FantasticFoliage 🌱
A few weeks makes a ton of difference—updated shots of our #UrbsInHorto #Chicago front garden bringing joy to the neighborhood. Hopefully a ringing endorsement for leave the leaves, deadwood habitat, and chop & drop!
#gardening #bloomscrolling #FlowerReport #SmallJoys 🌱
A tiny battered white bloom explodes with creamy carpels with a beautiful pale green bud drooping to the opposite side by soft hairy stems and bracts.
Award for earliest #NativePlants bloomer in our #UrbsInHorto #Chicago garden goes to Hepatica nobilis acuta (or whichever 3rd or 4th scientific name change it is now).
#gardening #bloomscrolling #FlowerReport #SmallJoys #FlowersOnFriday 🌱
A small grey and brown Cattle Dog with a fluffy raccoon tail walks ahead on a concrete sidewalk in a blue jacket with “Zoey” embroidered on it hot pink and a blue lead.
A peek through the chainlink fence at a thick clump of tiny yellow Daffs.
Closeup of a thick clump of tiny yellow Daffs.
A small grey and brown Cattle Dog stands in a blue jacket with “Zoey” embroidered on it hot pink showing the scale of the tiny Daffs.
Brisk morning walkies with #GardenDogs #WeAreAllZoey. Cattle Dogs need to stay busy or they’ll drive you bonkers since we have no cows in our #UrbsInHorto #Chicago garden. We spotted some beautiful mini Daffodils in a neighbor’s yard!
#gardening #bloomscrolling #FlowerReport #FlowersOnFriday 🌱
A thick tree that fills the width of the parkway with trunk and roots and has inevitably survived decades and decades of salt plowing and soil compaction and car door slamming.
An impressive #ThickTrunkTuesday street tree specimen that will provide much need cooling when it leafs out.
#gardening #nature #rcosystem #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Looked like fluffy feather bomb went off down the block out front during bedtime doggo walkies last night. Today in the big wind, whole block is littered with Rock Pigeon feathers so methinks the Cooper’s Hawk couple ate well yesterday.
#gardening #ecosystem #birds #UrbsInHorto #Chicago #nature 🌱
A beautiful hawk perches on a silver metallic horizontal street light with tree trunks and branches framing it from behind.
Mr. CMG captured this beauty on street light on morning doggo walkies. They’ve been super active & circling high since it warmed up. It’s so AMAZING that they are always around now that we have food chain for them. Nested nearby last year too.
#gardening #Ecosystem #Wildlife #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Sound on to enjoy #GardenDogs #WeAreAllZoey bringing big Dingo energy to a ballet of stomping on my tulips & a symphony of whine because Charlie the Yard Bunny is relaxing unfazed in neighbor yard in between noshing on new grass.
#gardening #Ecosystem #Wildlife #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Fresh green shoots with long vertical veining poking through last seasons young brown growth.
#NativePlants new foliage popping up in my garden just before this week’s snow.
#7 Carex muskingumensis (Palm Sedge), a late season sale planting last year to help add unusual textured matrix & #birds food to my dappled shade front beds.
#gardening #NoSpray #ecosystem #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
A rose-like cluster of ridged green leaves with smaller leaves with burgundy undersides reaching towards the sky.
#NativePlants new foliage popping up in my garden just before this week’s snow.
#6 Pycnanthemum muticum peeking through. Absolute ironclad grower #pollinators love.
#gardening #NoSpray #ecosystem #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Very small green stacks of leaves emerging all over in a wide spreading fashion.
#NativePlants new foliage popping up in my garden just before this week’s snow.
#5 Phlox divaricata (Woodland Phlox) which has beautiful early blue flowers & spread nicely.
#gardening #NoSpray #ecosystem #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Loose fans of shapely foliage with purple stems.
#NativePlants new foliage popping up in my garden just before this week’s snow.
#4 Thalictrum dioicum (Early Meadowrue) I believe based on location plus looser form & purplish stems, though it can look similar to young Aquilegia foliage.
#gardening #NoSpray #ecosystem #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Ladder-like pointy deep green leaves with a hint of red.
#NativePlants new foliage popping up in my garden just before this week’s snow.
#3 Polemonium reptans (Jacob’s Ladder) perfectly tough to soften the shady sidewalk edges.
#gardening #NoSpray #ecosystem #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Curvy palmate thickly textured mid green clusters.
#NativePlants new foliage popping up in my garden just before this week’s snow.
#2 Stylophorum diphyllum (Celadine Poppy) with its shapely #FantasticFoliage.
#gardening #NoSpray #ecosystem #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Small clusters of unfurling soft green leaves.
#NativePlants new foliage popping up in my garden just before this week’s snow.
#1 All the Aquilegia everywhere.
#gardening #NoSpray #ecosystem #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
A thick clump of early tulip foliage pushing up, each one thick and bright green and streaked with darkening burgundy.
The wine-streaked beauty of certain Tulipa greigii varieties is one of my favorite examples of #FantasticFoliage. Plus they’re dependably hearty & naturalize well here in our #UrbsInHorto #Chicago garden. 🌱
Woke up to a garden covered in snow and ice. Look up your estimated frost date, check your long term forecasts, and resist the urge to plant unless you have a cold frame or greenhouse and know how to use them.
Well that took a sharp turn! RIP to poor premature veggie seedlings newbie gardeners in my local #gardening groups who fell for False Spring planted out and are wanting to know how to save them this morning. Practice makes perfect.
#AlwaysLearning #WeatherRollercoaster #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Branches of a very large potted shrub leafing out along all its stems.
Tons of rain, ice, maybe lows in teens for day or two then back to spring. Gooseberry is leafing out (it will be fine!). But I love this time of year because ID-ing new foliage popping up takes me down rabbit hole of all the cool stuff I forgot I planted last year. #gardening #UrbsInHorto #Chicago 🌱
Deep golden yellow crocuses thrown open despite the overcast skies and dotted with fat raindrops against a background of brown leaf litter.
Just in time for #SundayYellow. A rainy one here, making all the new green growth and direct sowed seeds and winter sowing jugs happy. Here’s hoping for a particularly magical season in the garden this year!
#gardening #bloomscrolling #UrbsInHorto #Chicago #SmallJoys 🌱
