Chicago Gardens: The Early History (Center Books on Chicago and Environs)

About this book

Once maligned as a swampy outpost the fledgling city of Chicago brazenly adopted the motto Urbs in Horto or City in a Garden in 1837. Chicago Gardens shows how this upstart town earned its sobriquet over the next century from the first vegetable plots at Fort Dearborn to innovative garden designs at the 1933 Worlds Fair. Cathy Jean Maloney has spent decades researching the citys horticultural heritage and here she reveals the unusual history of Chicagos first gardens. Challenged by the regions clay soil harsh winters and fierce winds Chicagos pioneering horticulturalists Maloney demonstrates found imaginative uses for hardy prairie plants. This same creative spirit thrived in the citys local fruit and vegetable markets encouraging the growth of what would become the nations produce hub. The vast plains that surrounded Chicago meanwhile inspired early landscape architects such as Frederick Law Olmsted Jens Jensen and O.C. Simonds to new heights of grandeur. Maloney does not forget the backyard gardeners: immigrants who cultivated treasured seeds and pioneers who planted native wildflowers. Maloneys vibrant depictions of Chicagoans like Bouquet Mary a flower peddler who built a greenhouse empire add charming anecdotal evidence to her argumentthat Chicagos garden history rivals that of New York or London and ensures its status as a world-class capital of horticultural innovation. With exquisite archival photographs prints and postcards as well as field guide descriptions of living legacy gardens for todays visitors Chicago Gardens will delight green-thumbs from all parts of the world.