Plant Theater for May Day

 A Plant Theater, according to the Chicago Botanic Garden is a traditional English presentation of exceptional plants. The plants are potted and placed on tiers of shelves to highlight a collection of the same plant.  They can have 3 to 5 shelves and are ususally decoratively framed. Herbs, flowers, succulents can all be part of these seasonal display areas. 

I like the more traditional shape and design of a Plant Theater with crown molding and an almost inside the house look, but any set of shelves on which you display plants will work.

Here area few different images of the Plant Theater at the Chicago Botanic Garden.  For those familiar with the garden, the Plant Theater is located by one of the entrances to the English Walled Garden.  As it is one of the places at the Botanic Garden with a number of herbs as well as a relaxing formal organization, I enjoy stopping there every time I visit the Botanic Garden.

These are all Mums taken in October 2020.  During lock down in 2020 we visited the botanic garden every month during the season when it was open to the public to enjoy an excursion outdoors.  We picked different areas to explore, but came back often to the English Walled Garden.

It has other attributes besides the Plant Theater, There is a a stairway filled with scented geraniums.

There are sculpted garden shrubs surrounded by seasonal plants

I love to walk between plants, reach down and touch them with the tips of my fingers.  Besides my raised hill garden where I do that all the time, this public garden is a place I can do it as well.  They have brick paths lined on each side with a selection of scented herbs. Some have great texture like soft fuzz lambs ear varieties, or strong scent like garlic chives. And of course there are a number of different thyme plants.

The Plant Theater was originally installed in 2019 and is changed regularly by the horticultural staff. so I have a number of images of it. You can see the spring bulbs, like these grape Hyacinth in Spring and succulents in late fall. Last summer they had Mini Hostas.

The Walled Garden is a must see and here is why I started visiting. They have a Sundial.  I am obsessed with Sundials, I want more than one in my garden, so I collect images to decide what style I want.

For details on my Sundial search, check out my previous posts.

The Sundial in the Walled English Garden is a horizontal sundial with an equatorial spike, rather than a wedge which allows you to read the time in simmer and winter.

Enjoy this May Day with a trip through the garden, real or virtual!

Sundials in the Garden

Herb Garden Luthy Gardens, Peoria, IL

I have a thing about sundials.  I love them!  I search them out when we are visiting public and private gardens.  I decided it was time to share a few of my favorites.

Luthy Botanic Garden one of two made in 1905

This sundial is nestled into a wonderful herb garden at the Luthy Botanic Garden.  It had great plants, a bee skiff, and a wonderful brass entry gateway with the word "HERBS" which is must say I would like to have a similar version of one day.

I find that many times Sundials get broken, the center item that casts the shadow (called a gnomon) can be snapped off.  This one at the Chicago Botanic Garden suffered this fate.

Chicago Botanic Garden

Another at the Chicago Botanic has a single spire in the center.  This is not a common style it is called a Equatorial Sundial, as it can be read in both summer and winter, but differently so it needs a center spike rather than an angled gnomon.  However they are usually mounted at an angle to match latitude and this one is mounted horizontally, so it may have been relocated.

Before we go too far, I thought I would explain how they work.

The Gnomon is the item which casts the shadow to tell the time.  The Style (surface) of the gnomon always points directly north.  One has to figure out north whenever placing a sundial in the garden and then adjust it due to the latitude you live at to get an accurate time. This is more important with a Vertical Sundial so that it remains pointing North and set at an angle to the horizontal equal to the Latitude of the Sundial location. The Gnomon therefore must be set at an angle to the 'dial' of 900. minus Latitude.

Sundials are categorized by how they are mounted - horizontal, vertical, circular or cylindrical.  Most garden sundials are horizontal, like those shown above.  They are easy to position.  You make them level and point them north.  Vertical sundials are often found on the sides of buildings.  To be placed on the building they must be on the south facing side  Circular (called Armillary actually) use spokes or wheels to tell time rather than a gnomon. They are a bit more actuate than those with a gnomon, but take some time to install and they must be placed at a proper angle. Cylindrical are the most rare and are more common in Europe than in the U.S.  I have yet to see one.

We saw a great Vertical Sundial in New Harmony, Indiana on one of the restored buildings in this former Utopian village from the 1820s.

I used to drive by this one when I lived in Indianapolis, Indiana.  It is on the Publix Theater Building.

This sundial is Armillary.  I actually found two of them on the same trip, but it was sunny when I found this one, so you can see the time which shines as a number.  The in-between minutes are judged by the thin line on the surface of the sundial. This one is located in a formal garden at the Rotary Gardens in Janesville, Illinois.

Rotary Garden Janesville, WI

Most armillary sundials have an axis arrow (gnomon) and a series of circles being the equator, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, making it resemble a globe.  The gnomon is angled to the latitude of the location the sundial resides. This one is located at the Master Gardeners display garden at Purdue University.

Purdue University, Fort Wayne, IN

A new trend in Sundials at Botanic gardens is an interactive style called Analemmatic.  These dials are larger sundials on the ground where the visitor stands to become the gnomon.  You stand on a spot based on the season or month to make the time reading accurate.

Quad Cities Botanic Garden

My husband, who is 6 foot 8 makes a great gnomon. Here is another one:

Klehm Gardens in Rockford, Illinois

Sundials are often placed in public gardens as a memorial.  I have found several in cemeteries as remembrance.  This one was placed in Dellwood gardens in memory of George C. Fox Sr. a Lockport District Park Commissioner from 1945 to 1958. It was the quote I found most interesting: "Dedicated to Serving his Community   Service is the Golden Coin of Life"

Here is the surface of the sundial. It has my favorite saying on it. The garden it stands in looked great even in the fall.

If you are interested in more information on mounting and using sundials or on the locations and history of memorial and antique sundials, check out the North American Sundial Society https://sundials.org  They have a nice article about the maker of the 1905 sundial in Peoria.