Urbs in Horto

I've always loved flowers, but having grown in the subtropical climate of India, I had been accustomed to a very different set of plants ... Here in Chicago, winter is gray and barren, mostly snow covered, but there in Patna [India, where I grew] .. the months of Nov-Dec-Jan are gorgeously wonderful with lush green lawns and brilliantly colored flowers like chrysanthemums, dahlias, gladiolous and roses in full bloom ... Many types of "bulb" plants that require cool winter period to stimulate their development and bloom in spring, like crocus, hyacinths, alliums, tulips and daffodils are commonplace here, but are not found there ... Also flowering trees/shurbs like crabapple, forsythia, lilac and azaleas are not a part of landscape there ...

Then Illinois being a prairie land, has it's own set of native plants, that I had never seen or heard of .. like Columbine, Prairie Smoke, Shooting Star, Blazing Star and Compass flower ...

With my love for flowers AND photography, I took many shots, especially of flowers that were new to me ... and then spent hours trying to figure out their names ... But these images were all on my computer and noone else could see them, so I thought about sharing these pictures ... So here's my blog "Urbs in Horto"*.

Most of the images are from different gardens in Chicago, like
# Chicago Botanic Garden ..
# Chicago Botanic Garden - Greenhouses ..
# Lurie Garden, Millennium Park ..
# Lincoln Park Conservatory ..
# Garfield Park ..

AND few smaller gardens and also roadside blooms ...

I hope to carry on with posting images here, but time is a HUGE constraint ... so blogging will continue in a very intermittent manner ...

Please feel free to identify any flower name that I've missed .. or to correct any name .. or to just comment ..

* "Urbs in Horto" is the city of Chicago's Latin motto... which is means "City in a Garden" ... It is found on the "Seal" of Chicago, which was enacted in 1833, when the city was still a town. More than 150 years later ... the city has lived up to to it's motto ... and there are gardens and roadside planters & trees all over the town.