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Jim Angrabright

After a 30 year career in the IT industry, Jim Angrabright is now able to pursue other interests including landscaping, garden design and gardening. Although he spent many hours in his father's ornamental and vegetable garden, most of his adult life was limited to apartment gardening. "My gardening interests were rekindled ten years ago when I landscaped a small city lot for my condo association.  Five years after that, I joined the Wicker Park Garden Club where I am now able to garden again on a large scale," Jim explains.

Stories from Jim Angrabright

Our Urban Forrest: This American Kestrel

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
03/24/2012
KestrelCloseUp

The recent discovery of a bald eagle nest within the city limits, the first one sighted since the 1880s, points to the success of the ban on DDT and protection granted by the Federal and State laws. But it also reveals how, if given a chance, nature will fill in the niches of our built environment.

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Return your tree to nature -- do NOT put it in the garbage

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
01/07/2012
Tree2

Between now and January 20th you can recycle your holiday tree by dropping it off at any of twenty-three Chicago parks.

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The Rebuilding Exchange comes to the neighborhood

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
03/10/2011
Tub

On a recent buying trip to the Rebuilding Exchange a rehabber made the following purchases: 9 doors: solid wood, walnut veneer, no hardware, various sizes, excellent condition; 24 windows: double pane, sealed, unframed; 1 vintage bathtub, stainless steel, therapeutic, with bubbler and built-in thermometer. Total tab: $555.00.

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Recycle your holiday tree

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
01/04/2011
Tree2

Between now and January 17th you can recycle your holiday tree by dropping it off at any of twenty-three Chicago parks.

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Urban Forest: Trees and bikes

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
07/27/2010
BikeAtTree

We live in an urban forest and traversing a tree-lined street with its leafy canopy can be quite calming. But if one of those trees is dead, its bare branches bleached white as bone, it can be quite jarring.

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Three Friends of Winter: Plums

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
06/02/2010
P.TokawButterfly

For many years I worked for an institution with a home office in Washington D.C. and consequently made frequent trips to the capital for the usual work related reasons, sometimes for weeks on end. In those dozens of visits only once, on my last visit, did I fortuitously arrive at the height of the city's Cherry Blossom festival.

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Three Friends of Winter: Pines

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
04/06/2010
Pine

In Japan a term often used for the ranking of 3 items is matsu take ume. The Japanese may speak this using the Chinese pronunciation sho chiku bai. It doesn't matter what you're grouping or by what means: oldest to youngest for three daughters; highest to lowest for Kendo swordsmanship; largest to smallest for bento lunch boxes.

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Three Friends of Winter: Bamboo

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
03/11/2010
Bamboo1

 

Bamboo has a bad rap. Listening to some people you'd think bamboo the most feared plant species in North America: an invader that, unlike kudzu, has no respect for the frost line, the plant world's equivalent of Asian carp. But fear not. In many ways bamboo is just a paper dragon.

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Add interest to your winter garden: Three Friends of Winter

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
02/12/2010
S1P5

Wouldn’t it be heart lifting during these winter months to gaze out your window, into your garden and see a little green? Maybe a focal point or two? Or a precursor of spring? 

There are any number of ways to add interest to your garden in winter and I present here one of my favorites: suihan sanyou or literally “three friends in winter”. And those friends are bamboo, pine and plum. "

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Old Xmas Tree!

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
01/15/2010
Tree1

You’re spent. More then likely, you’ve overspent. But at last the holidays are over. And now’s the time to clean up the mess.

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The Poinsettia is also a flower

By: 
Jim Angrabright
Date: 
12/21/2009
IcePunchPoinsettia300

Iconic images can become ubiquitous and with omnipresence comes monotony. The end of the year, when the holidays pile up like a multi-car crash on the Kennedy, is fraught with many such images, images which inhabit our imagination all too completely: bronzed turkeys, Father Time, Xmas trees, crèches, dreidels and...poinsettias.

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