AT A GLANCE
Why go?
The Chicago Botanic Garden is a 385-acre living museum of more than 2.5 million plants spread across nine islands in Glencoe, Illinois. With 27 distinct display gardens and natural habitats ranging from prairie to woodland to wetland, it is one of the most visited public gardens in the United States—welcoming over a million people each year to walk its paths, ride its tram, and lose themselves in green.↗↗
What makes this place singular is its sheer range. Within a single visit you can cross from a formal Japanese garden to a native tallgrass prairie, from a tropical butterfly habitat to an English walled garden designed by a legendary British landscape architect. Seasonal attractions like the Model Railroad Garden and Grand Tram Tour are included with admission, making it as much a family day out as a horticultural pilgrimage.↗↗
A Living Museum Born from a Dream
The story of the Garden begins with the Chicago Horticultural Society, founded in 1890 under the motto Urbs in Horto—"city in a garden." The Society hosted nationally recognized flower shows, including a chrysanthemum exhibition tied to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. But a permanent botanic garden remained an "impossible dream" until the early 1960s, when the Society partnered with the Forest Preserves of Cook County to create one on the former Skokie Marsh. Groundbreaking came in 1965; the doors opened in spring 1972 with a single small greenhouse and roughly 30 staff.
