The former "Associates Building" literally towers over Millennium Park. (It's been taken over by a tribe of small blue men, with only one woman, and renamed "Smurfit-Stone Building.")
For this month's "Picture This" photo contest at Gardening Gone Wild, judge Allan Mandell chose the theme "On the Road Again." Bet you thought I'd post a shot from Buffalo, but no. The above photo was taken in Millenium Park, in Chicago. At first blush, it might appear that I wasn't on the road , as I live in what is called "Chicagoland." But I was on the road. I haven't been in the Loop since April, and I've been within the city limits only twice since then, both trips to the North Side, north of Irving Park Road. So when I was at Navy Pier for the Independent Garden Center Show, Mary Ann, of Gardens of the Wild, Wild West, urged me to pop over to the Lurie Garden on my way to the train station heading home. I snapped photos like a tourist, which, in a way, I was.
I used my little point-and- shoot, just like all the other tourists.
The top photo isn't from the Lurie itself, but it spoke to me about the spirit of Millennium Park and Chicago's motto, "Urbus in Horto," City in a garden. Under Mayor Richard M. Daley, the City of Chicago has made great strides to live up to that motto, with beautiful plantings in parkways and medians, everywhere you look. The juxtaposition of the cold, man-made skyscrapers with the flowing life of the grasses operates as a metaphor for the city that grew out of the prairie.
And now, some images from the Lurie itself:
Is that really pink Muhly grass (Muhlenbergia)?
If so, I want some from their seeds.
The river of stuff.
Exotics have been carefully mixed in with the natives at the Lurie.
Here, Perovskia from Siberia rubs shoulders with the native Eryngium yuccafolium (rattlesnake master).
Grouping with Agastache.
Panicum virgatum, Amsonia and blooming Agastache
Another exotic, a hardy Geranium, lines the path.
Here's an old friend from the prairie,
one of the Silphiums.
It looks a lot taller at Flint Creek Savannah.
I hope you enjoyed the shots. Have you played tourist in your town?