Abraham Lincoln had a modest library, befitting his focused outlook and humble origins. He possessed some law books, since he passed the bar exam by reading and memorizing all he could get his hands on. He famously never set foot in college, much less law school. (Today most states prohibit this; in fact, I don’t […]

May Theilgaard Watts Reading The Landscape Of America — Botanical observation and nature writing combined in a stylish book with charming illustrations, perhaps the best of its kind. A legend in Chicago and long associated with the Morton Arboretum, May Watts was a Julia Child of botany. Sometime in the sixties when my mother took […]

While we recommend you wear old shoes and pack an umbrella when you visit our Hellebore Open on April 20 and 21, we promise you will be greatly rewarded with a full day of unprecedented early spring beauty.

Unbeatable value, too.

Imagine what a five dollar ($5.00) entry fee—refundable as credit for a plant purchase—gets you these days, and you cannot even dream up anyone to match our offer of a day…

My mom once asked me which sense I’d give up if I had to, sight or hearing? A teenager at the time, I wondered if it was a trick question. I thought about the blind people I’d seen tapping their canes along the sidewalks, and answered, “Hearing”. She told me she’d give up sight. I […]

Sometime in the mid 70s, I celebrated a party with friends at a then-landmark French restaurant in Chicago—the first of the “nouvelle”—called Le Perroquet. (There I tasted my first “mesclun” salad.) As we talked and dined I discerned, through the wine haze, that the place was utterly unique. Outside New Orleans, New York or San Francisco, no place like it existed, since fish was the focus. Thirty years ago, old…

Rex Murfitt Creating And Planting Alpine Gardens — Fantastic, workable introduction to alpines, with adjustments for the unique challenges facing US growing conditions. Murfitt also co-wrote the excellent Creating And Planting Garden Troughs. Roger Swain The Practical Gardener — Best overall gardening primer. Groundwork: A Gardener’s Ecology — Beautifully written. Earthly Pleasures — Collection, mostly, […]