Flowers and fashion in Chicago
(Read article summary)Each summer Chicago's Magnificent Mile bursts into bloom.
If you’re in Chicago between June 26 and Sept. 1, do plan a stroll along the Windy City’s Magnificent Mile.
Not only will you gaze at great flower gardens, but the annual ComEd Gardens of the Magnificient Mile – dozens of small gardens funded by the high-end hotels, restaurants, and retailers along north Michigan Avenue – have some zany green inhabitants.
For the second year, students from the International Academy of Design and Technology and the Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago have been given dress forms and asked to adorn them creatively in recycled materials.
These could be anything from old chicken wire to a hat like one Queen Elizabeth might have worn in the mid-1950s. Think of it as a green take on the traditional department-store mannequin.
These creations are then placed in individual gardens. And they'll be auctioned off, with the funds going to the Magnificent Mile Charitable Foundation.
I was intrigued as I read the list of gardens and what plants the plots will contain. Experienced gardeners will get a chuckle from some of the plant descriptions – hibiscus trees, cherry wavy petunias, etc. – which were obviously compiled by nongardeners (and probably over the phone since many have phonetic spellings). But that's OK – lots of us don't speak Latin fluently.
It sounds like typecasting, but the Apple Computer store will host a Zen garden, which “gives a tropical feel of calm serenity.”
