The Chicago Botanic Garden's Dwarf Conifer Garden is now open again after its closure last fall for a major renovation. The new garden design, by Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects, features a new staircase entry sequence, with pocket planting beds and new terrace overlooks that offer stunning views of the surrounding gardens.
Walls of evergreens enclose the garden, while "windows" allow visitors to look out to the Japanese Garden, the Great Basin, and other areas below. Stone troughs contain miniature conifers, and rock outcroppings are placed throughout the site. The collection includes more than 150 different kinds of dwarf conifers, and it's considered one of the best in the United States.
Many of the garden's mature specimens were relocated and placed in the new garden to emphasize shape and color -- globes, pyramids, and columnar specimens in blues, golds, emerald greens, and chartreuse.
Some of the rare species in the collection include one of the largest weeping Norway spruces in the Midwest; a thread-leaf false cypress that is 30 years old; and a Horstmann's Silberlocke Korean fir. These plants stayed in their original locations, and the garden was designed around them.
(photos: Robin Carson © Chicago Botanic Garden)
Comments