The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
Feeling some garden wanderlust?
Here are 12 Middle-America gardens to visit this summer
Nothing is more helpful to a gardener than seeing what others are growing, what they’re killing, and what plants have stood the test of time in a particular part of the country. Of course, you can hop in the car and drive around town to see what’s doing well and what isn’t, but it’s not always easy to know what you’re looking at. For some reason, most homeowners and municipal tree programs don’t take the time to label their plants with common and botanical names, taxonomic family, native distribution of the species and the like. (Insert eye-roll emoji!)
Fortunately, that’s where public horticulture plays a central role. Be it an arboretum, botanical garden, or even a public cemetery, some public horticulture institutions house mammoth plant collections and extensive plant performance records, along with identification tags, to help you know what you’re looking at and how it might do for you.
If you find yourself sitting at home, feeling a little pandemic-induced horticultural wanderlust, here’s a list of some great plant collections to visit around the central part of the US.
Cave Hill Cemetery
701 Baxter Ave., cavehillcemetery.com
Comprising 296 acres of land just east of downtown Louisville and the resting place of such luminaries as Muhammad Ali, George Rogers Clark and Col. Harland Sanders, Cave Hill Cemetary is a horticultural paradise with extensive, labeled tree collections. From a massive old Ginkgo rumored to have been brought back to the US by Henry Clay, to the miles of lanes lined with magnolias, dogwoods and a host of other rarities, this is a tree lover’s paradise and well worth a trip.
Chicago Botanic Garden
1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, Illinois, chicagobotanic.org/
For this gardener’s money, one of the finest botanical gardens in the US, CBG sits just north of downtown Chicago on a handful of islands that were basically dug out of a swamp. Its many themed display gardens go on forever, its collection and development of new plants are second to none and its education programs are tops. The new plant evaluation garden (currently under construction) is destined to become a lifer destination for plant geeks from far and wide.
Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
3400 Vine cincinnatizoo.org
Often overlooked because the giraffes and hippos typically get top billing, Cincinnati’s best-known public garden is in fact the grounds of its equally fantastic zoo. I can’t think of another zoo in the US that can compete with the diversity of the zoo’s plant material or the expertise of its staff. An industry-wide program based at CZBG annually evaluates new annual and tropical plants based on both industry members and general public visitors. One hundred thousand spring bulbs make a display that is a must-see.
Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Garden
This is a great destination for the gardener and the whole family as well. With extensive gardens, conservatory plant collections, and artist Dale Chihuly sculpture display, there’s something for everyone. A varied list of classes, regular farmer’s markets and hands-on workshops head up a packed season of programs.
Lurie Garden
220 E Monroe St, Chicago, Illinois, luriegarden.org
Sitting quietly in the south end of Chicago’s Millenium Park (you know ... the place with the Bean sculpture!) is an absolute natural oasis in the middle of the city. Truly a 4-season garden, the plantings and its ecologically sensitive management approach make for a spot that is as welcoming to human visitors as it is to wildlife. It is an absolute mustsee when in the Windy City.
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
If you’re in the mood to visit Prince’s Paisley Park, hop on down the road about 4 miles from there to a gem of a public garden. Sitting on some 1,200 acres of rolling terrain is this splendid collection of woody and herbaceous ornamental plants and gardens. A fabulous horticultural library, extensive classes and endless paths for wandering.
Missouri Botanical Garden
Known to some as the Mecca of plant biology, this is a place of not just pretty gardens and plants but also pretty awesome plant science. Just imagine, their herbarium (cataloged collection of dried plants specimens for study) numbers over 6 million sheets!
Morton Arboretum
4100
IL-53,
Lisle,
Illinois,
When it rains, it pours – or so says the old Morton Salt commercial. And we have the Morton Salt family to thank for this outstanding place of trees and tree science. Its motto is to inspire visitors to appreciate, protect and learn about trees. Considering that it has a collection of about a zillion and a half trees, that’s a pretty good motto.
Newfields
4000 N Michigan Road, Indianapolis, Indiana, discovernewfields.org
Formerly the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Newfields has been reborn to include in its mission the stunning and varied gardens and grounds as well as a 90-acre sculpture park. The horticulture staff at Newfields seem to bleed chlorophyll and it shows in their seemingly endless displays of spring bulbs, summer annual and tropical borders, and in some of the most amazing planted containers anywhere.
Olbrich Botanical Garden
Looking to add a bit of variety to your microbrewery tour of Madison? This is the place. Only 16 acres in size but it punches well above its weight with beautiful and varied borders, some of the best dry/gravel gardens anywhere in this part of the US, and a pretty darned stunning plant collection, too.
Spring Grove Cemetery
Spearheaded by none other than the Cincinnati Horticultural Society in 1845, Spring Grove has become a favorite destination for tree geeks from across the globe. Monstrous specimens of a tremendously wide list of common and unusual tree species make a walk around the grounds a day-long class in trees.
Yew Dell Botanical Gardens
Just a 20-minute drive from Louisville sits this outstanding collection of garden plants, themed display gardens, and award-winning architecture. On the National Register of Historic Places and a Preservation Partner of the Garden Conservancy, Yew Dell focuses its research on the collection and evaluation of plants from across the globe to find the next best garden plants for the region.