Chicago Botanical Gardens

The other week I mentioned that I had made a list of places I should go and see while here in Chicago. Today was a chance to make a dent in that list. It's been a hazy sunny day, warm and not beach weather so I decided to visit the Chicago Botanical Gardens. This proved to be slightly more of a pain than I hoped since my only way to get there is by train, which runs once every two hours. I was tempted not to go with those limited options, since I would have to really get my timing right to catch the train home. The dealbreaker was the fact that I found out that they had a kite festival. Having attempted to fly kites on multiple occasions, only to get them twisted up, I thought it would be interesting to see what exactly a kite performance to music entailed. It's not the most exciting thing I have ever done, but I didn't think I will get the chance again. I also had nothing better to do except work related stuff, so why not?

I know some people think gardens are boring, but I actually really like Botanical Gardens, and this one is free to go to. Most are pretty amazing, Kew is a must see for anyone visiting London who wants to see something more green than Hyde Park. The one we went to in Croatia last year was not so great... very dry and more like a desert. In a past life I used to work in a garden centre and did work experience at a manor with large grounds in Kent. I think I might also have entertained ideas of becoming a landscape architect. I do like to do my best to turn my balcony into a jungle every summer when I get the chance. Sadly, that hasn't happened this year for obvious reasons. So you can see why coming here was interesting to me.

The train ride north was pretty average, although I do like to see the greater Chicago area. Some of the houses are amazing, and typically American in the fact that they are enormous by European standards. I thought the trolley bus that picks you up from the station to take you to the gardens was pretty cute. As was the station I arrived at.

The botanical garden was busy, but not so crowded that it detracted from the enjoyment of being in the countryside. The gardens is essentially a series of islands in a lake connected by various bridges. The islands have different garden themes. Some are more cultivated than others. There was a native garden, with species that are home to the Midwest. To be honest this wasn't particularly exciting and a lot of what I saw was very similar to what we see in the UK.

I wandered through the landscape gardens and some other areas for a bit. Before heading over to the kite display by the Chicago Fire Kite Team. These guys were skilled, and I liked the music choices. Watching these guys was a nice way to spend some time. It was quite entertaining when a large bird, maybe a hawk mistook one of the kites for something more edible. Fortunately whatever it was realised it's mistake before the performance went a bit Pete Tong.

Coming in to land

You can find some short videos of the performances here: http://youtu.be/e-nXts3P6oo and here (my favourite) http://youtu.be/OhxI6HdsiAE. For some reason blogger is super slow to upload, otherwise I would have embedded them here.

After a quick hot dog (are you noticing a theme here?), which was slightly marred by the misfortune of overhearing the conversation of some pretty horrible and precocious teenage girls in the hot dog queue, I headed off to the plant science centre. As you can see from the pictures there are actually real labs here. I love the fact that the labs have one glass wall so the public can see the scientists at work, and what they actually do.

Inside the plant science centre (top left). A living roof experiment to see which plants survive best (top right).One of the labs where someone was actually working (bottom right). 

The remainder of the time I just wandered round enjoying the sunshine and the calm of the gardens. I missed the butterflies exhibit and some of the other pieces. I think I'll save them for another time. Otherwise I would have had to wait another two hours for my train and I was starting to get sunburnt. Which I would have avoided if I hadn't left my suncream somewhere in St. Louis and then forgotten to get another. Will need to pick some up for next week - the plan is to hit North Beach and join half a million people to watch the Chicago Air and Water Show!

Bridge to the Japanese Garden (top right). Waterfall Garden (centre).