Unfortunately this tree no longer exists. Unlike the many stories of great trees, this one is of the lowly, scrubby box elder.

“Mom, mama, mom, mom, can I tell you, mom? Mama?”

In September 1999, my 13-year-old daughter came to me for help after being assigned an eighth-grade science project: “creating an experiment with plants.” Being an avid amateur gardener

Our kids are 42 and 44. One of them planted a seed in a school project and brought it home in a cup when it was several inches high.

Fifteen years ago I made a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation and received a bag of 10 blue spruce "sticks."  They sure didn't look like much!

Where I grew up in Clarendon Hills, we had a large blue spruce in the front yard and two in the backyard. The branches hung down to the ground.

Studded with galls and marked by a long, zipper-like scar, the last of seven elm trees presided massively over our front yard, sheltering generations of squirrels and at least one small human who w

Redbuds always remind me of the beauty of spring, the awakening from the winter and the coming of a vibrant summer.

My husband and I moved into a new home in Grayslake in 1993. The subdivision was new, but it was built on the site of a former horse farm. 

All of the homes were the same Queen Anne style on the short 6400 block of North Newland Avenue in Chicago in the 1950s.

I grew up on Main Street in Lisle. My grandpa worked and my grandparents lived in The Morton Arboretum, so trees were a big part of my life!

My parents retired to a smaller home in the Aurora area as they aged, and their home had a cherry tree in the backyard. I would visit them weekly from the north suburbs with my children.

Scott Grams, the executive director of the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association, shares the importance of a childhood tree and what it meant to the kids of a suburban tract home community.

A mighty oak stood within Glacial Park in McHenry County for over 400 years.

My tree is not tall nor mighty today, but what it represents is powerful.

When I was a small child, I liked animals. This is easy--animals have recognizable faces, personalities, behaviors. Animals are athletic, they like to run and play!

We call her Betty. Betty White (Oak)! She was discovered during a New Year's Eve Oak Rescue at a private property along Route 14 in Harvard.