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Chicago’s Five Beautiful Gardens with Delightfully Distinct Characteristics

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow. And Spring is here.
Time to relax outdoors, soak in the sun and enjoy the vivid colors and frangrances of flowers.
Here is looking at Chicago’s Gardens, with very interestingly distinct characteristics.

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Lurie Garden, Millennium Park.
Native and Perennial plants Garden in the New Wave Planting Style.

In the heart of the city is the Lurie Garden at Millennium Park. Designed by Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf, and Robert Israel, the Lurie Garden opened in 2004. The garden consists entirely of perennials. More than half, about 65%, of the plants in the Lurie Garden are native to North America, some to Illinois, and all are perennials.

Lurie Garden is one of the first examples in the United States to experiment with the “New Wave Planting Styles.” It looks like brush strokes of an impressionist painting. It makes use of native plants, perennials, grasses and bulbs, to create a landscape that changes colors, textures and shapes through different seasons, just like a natural landscape does. This style is relaxed and natural. It is less geometric and less controlled than traditional gardens. Piet Oudolf, the world renowned Dutch plantsman, is one of the founders of the New Wave Planting Style. In designing the plantings of the Lurie Garden, he grouped perennial plants into combinations of plants that looked good and grew well together. His design considers each plant’s entire appearance, including growth habits, leaf shape, flowering seed case and winter silhouette.

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The Garden of the Phoenix, Jackson Park.
Japanese Garden, utilizing elements such as lakes islands and hills to create miniature reproductions of natural scenery.

The Garden of the Phoenix – Japanese Garden – is a symbolic representation of natural scenery at small scale. Mountains, lakes and islands are all represented here. The major elements in the garden are both natural and man-made. Natural elements are rocks, water, hills, plants and man-made objects include cut-stone lanterns and basins, bridges and a pavilion. These elements are asymmetrically composed and balanced to achieve harmony. In this Finished Hill Style Stroll Garden the meandering path guides the viewer to main vistas at changes in the path’s direction, and at fixed viewing stones. The garden is intended to provide tranquility for meditation.

Three styles of traditional granite lanterns were imported and displayed. Kasuga [upright], Rankei [overhanging] and Yukimi [four-legged snow lanterns]. In addition, a water basin in the form of an opening flower is provided near the pavilion. The Kasuga lantern near the entrance is from the original garden located at this site. The moon bridge is a traditional design and is best viewed when reflected upon itself in the water. The garden pavilion with an Irimoya style roof and raised platform are be used for demonstrations of Japanese culture and martial arts.

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Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool , Lincoln Park.
A tradition of the Prairie School garden designed by Alfred Caldwell.
It is influenced by work of landscape architect Jens Jensen who famous for his prairie style design work.

The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool is a serene and beautiful “hidden gem” next to the Lincoln Park Zoo and Conservatory. It was first landscaped in 1889 and designated as a place in which to cultivate tropical water lilies. In the 1930’s, it was re-designed by landscape architect Alfred Caldwell. It’s made in the tradition of the Prairie School, influenced by such greats as Frank Lloyd Wright and Caldwell’s teacher, Jens Jensen. By the 1950s, Caldwell’s 1936 Lily Pool design deteriorated and was loaned to the Lincoln Park Zoo as an avian exhibit known as the “Lincoln Park Rookery.” This caused further deterioration and, eventually, the zoo no longer required it. The Chicago Park District closed the site to the public for many years. Weedy trees and shrubs grew unchecked, stonework broke, hillsides eroded, wildflowers died, and the pool filled with debris until the Lincoln Park Conservancy came to its rescue.

The Lincoln Park Conservancy raised $1.1 million in private funding for the project and the Chicago Park District allocated $1.3 million from its capital budget. In 1997, the Conservancy adopted the Lily Pool and, with the Chicago Park District, created a Master Plan to restore Caldwell’s historic landscape and improve accessibility. Wolff Landscape Architecture was hired to complete the project. Construction of the $2.4 million project began in 2000 and was completed and reopened to the public in spring 2002. It was also renamed from Lincoln Park Rookery to the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool.

The main features of the Lily Pool are the Prairie style gateway, the pavilion, the curving walkways, the limestone paths, and the circular benches that Jensen referred to as “the council ring,” a cascading waterfall and the native plants and trees. These features, arranged around a lily pool, creates the look of a creek running through a Midwest prairie. In 1942, Caldwell called the pool “a hidden garden for the people of Megalopolis.”

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Grandmother’s Garden, Lincoln Park.
An English landscape garden – a manmade creation with naturalistic look to mimic nature in a highly idealized way.

Grandmother’s Garden have flourished on this Lincoln Park site since the early 1890s. This naturalistic garden may have originally been created by Carl Stormback, Lincoln Park’s head gardner of the late 1880’s and early 1890’s. Though essentially a manmade creation, the intent of a naturalistic garden is to mimic nature in a highly idealized way. In the center is the Shakespeare Monument by William Ordway Partridge. A fitting site for an English Garden.

Grandmother’s Garden was consciously juxtaposed to the formal “French style” garden surrounding the conservatory directly across the street. An article published in 1900 explained that one could not find a better example of the two contrasting styles. It suggested that while Grandmother’s Garden was a “profusion of flowers of all kinds combined according to color and foliage, “the Formal Garden was an arrangement of set forms and conventional designs.” Additionally, this is a perennial garden, while the Formal Garden is composed of annuals.

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Nature Boardwalk, Lincoln Park Zoo.
South Pond of Lincoln Park Zoo has been transformed into Nature Boardwalk,
The Boardwalk is an Ecosystem, which provides refuge for people, plants and wildlife,
and offers visitors a place to observe connections between water, land and skyline.

The South Pond of Lincoln Park Zoo has been transformed into a Nature Boardwalk. The South Pond has been a part of Lincoln Park Zoo since the zoo was opened in 1868. However the pond was not deep enough to support wildlife. The Lincoln Park Zoo scientists along with construction crew and environmental engineers transformed this area into a Nature Boardwalk. The pond was drained, dredged and physically transformed. After about 10 years of renovation and investment of about $12 million, the Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo opened to public on June 24, 2010.

Nature Boardwalk is far more than an urban oasis; it is an urban ecosystem, and an anchor for conservation, education and care. It is a Living Laboratory, where Zoo scientists use different methods to monitor the urban ecosystem. The boardwalk circumscribing the pond passes through various educational zones that explicate the different animals, plants, and habitat found in each. The pavilion – integrated into the boardwalk sequence – provides shelter for open-air classes on the site. The pavilion design is inspired by the tortoise shell. Its laminated structure consists of prefabricated, bent-wood members and a series of interconnected fiberglass pods that give global curvature to the surface. The pavilion was planned in a way to frame the Chicago Skyline.

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RELATED LINKS

Chicago, Public Art in Lincoln Park .. click here..
Chicago, Art by Location.. click here..
Chicago: Landmark Monuments and Sites.. click here..
Chicago: Parks, Boulevards and Gardens.. click here..

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