The Weedpatch Gazette
Welcome! My favorite part of this blog is the interactive aspect of it. Click on the blue titles to view the full article. This page is where you can pin, tweet, share, and best of all, COMMENT! I like comments! ~ Rommy Lopat
CHICAGO PLANTS, LANDSCAPES, PARKS & PRESERVES
~ and the people that create them ~
Darn Those Landscape Architects!
If I heard it once, I heard it a million times: "The final landscape plan shall strive to be a model for the community with a focus on removal of invasive species and planting of indigenous species". And then something like this follows:...
read moreSure Signs of Summer
9:33 am. Location: Lake Forest backyard, sunny perfect day, having coffee and reading Chicago Historical Society journal and the NYTimes, while texting to see if anyone wants to see A Midsummer Night's Dream with me tonight (no one (so far)...
read moreUpcoming Garden Tour(s) in Lake Forest: Cultural Landscape Foundation
One of my favorite reference books is Pioneers of American Landscape Design, edited (2000) by two luminaries of landscape history, Charles Birnbaum and Robin Karson. They began compiling biographies of noted landscape architects back in 1992...
read moreHow Did July Come Around So Fast?
Thanks for your patience, everyone, while I (and others) wrestled with a developer who wants to bring Whole Foods to Lake Forest. Yes, the same Whole Foods which, "in an effort to save trees" doesn't publish quarterly shareholder reports, is...
read moreField Notes
As I walk past the towering lilies backlit with sun and enter the field messy with helianthus and brambles I hear the raucous yells of crows in the woods near the old spring. What did they find? Are they mad or jubilant? Then silence. Walking...
read moreWatch Jens Jens Documentary (complete with his voice) TONIGHT
Hi, Weedpatch fans. So sorry I've been SO SO out of touch: I am devoting a lot (!) of time to trying to save 400 mature and reproducing oak and hickory trees on an 8 acre site in Lake Forest. A shopping center developer, Bill Shiner, has...
read moreGarden Markers: The Best Product Yet
Who among you hasn't been really really irked about plant "markers"? You know, the ubiquitous white plastic tags that snap in half after a season stuck in the dirt next to your plant? Or the sales tags that don't offer botanical names and are stapled to...
read moreTrout Lilies: Durable Little Woodland Stalwarts
This is a very sweet and interesting post about our woodland Trout lilies by Elgin blogger Pat Hill, who is also the author of the 2007 book, Design Your Natural Midwest Garden which you can buy via her website, naturalmidwestgarden.com. I...
read moreAnd Now for my Substitute Guest Editor or…
A View from A Broad! I have always been a HUGE fan of the Divine Miss M's and, obviously having too much time on my hands today, I landed on Bette Midler's website. Actually, I was looking for tickets to the Carole King show in NYC, but that's...
read moreSpring Has Sprung–and my dam is leaking!
Way, way, way oversubscribed--that's me. But that's IS me--God better be careful about letting me into heaven, because I will find a zillion projects to distract myself from enjoying, well, joy. Even when joy is partaking of all life has to offer. As...
read moreWhat Does Your Veg Garden Grow?
I lost a month! Somehow with all the gloom and gray and snow, I was totally shocked the other night when I started thumbing through the Chicago Botanic Garden's course guide, picked out a "spring" class that sounded good, and realized that the class had...
read moreA March Sunset just a stone’s throw from the Atlantic Ocean…
“They captured in their ramble all the mysteries and magics of a March evening. Very still and mild it was, wrapped in a great, white, brooding silence -- a silence which was yet threaded through with many little silvery sounds which you could...
read moreNot a Centerfold, but Close!
I've always wanted to be a magazine centerfold, fodder for the tabloids, or a great read for your time in line at the grocery store. And this is as close as I may ever get: Thank you to Better Homes and Gardens editor James Baggett, my longtime...
read moreGarfield Park Conservatory and Mothers Trust Foundation: Congratulations
Garfield Park Conservatory, located on the far west side of Chicago not too far from Oak Park, is one of my favorite places. I love love love the fern room there--it's a wonderful respite from the "concrete jungle": "Designed by Hitchings and...
read moreThis is what happens when you cut down all the trees!
Thanks to Jon Henricks for sending this my way, and thanks especially to whoever created this (unattributed) photo and put it on the Internet... I love your sense of irony!##
read moreStart to a Cheerful Tuesday
Good morning, Weedpatch pals. Here's a Japanese woodblock created in 1917 to cheer up your morning: gotta love Columbines! That same year (1917), a native Chicagoan, Neltje Blanchan, who wrote eleven books in her 52 years, said this about...
read moreSaving the Planet…read it and weep OR become a better gardener?
This snowy morning I opened the newspaper to find: a story about California's drought: 600,000 acres of farmland will receive no water from reservoirs or canals this year because there is no water in them. What a weather disaster. It's a...
read moreSpring MUST be near…
While grocery shopping at Jewel, my nose detected a known, but distant, fragrance. Here's what I looked down to find, and took a big, deep breath (yes, I inhaled!). On this gloomy, snowy, boring day, may these daffodils bring you hope that...
read moreThe Turtle Hospital
One more afternoon in the Florida Keys before I have to return to snowy Chicago...In the meantime I want to tell you about an incredible facility in Marathon called The Turtle Hospital. Here's what I now know. There are seven species of...
read moreCoral Restorations (And You Thought Restoring Oak Savannas Was Tricky)
Good morning from sunny, 80 degree Islamorada, Florida, which I first learned means "purple island" but later learned means the "little drinking village in the Florida Keys with a fishing problem". I had the great good fortune of going fishing...
read moreMISSION
The Weedpatch Gazette is written for people who believe that beautiful landscapes should emphasize diversity and richness in plant material and be especially sensitive to landforms, ecology, economy, wildlife, and the wise use of land, water and soil. TWG aims to present information succinctly, with candor, detail, and humor. Submissions of content, well-reasoned criticism, and ideas for stories about landscape and the people who make and appreciate them are always welcome.
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