Chicago Botanic Garden
State-of-the-art New Horticulture Center:
Greenhouses and Nurseries for Living Collections
Summary
The Chicago Botanic Garden is one of the great gardens of the world, a living museum known for its extensive, diverse plant collections and exquisite horticultural displays. In every season, there are activities, programs, and breathtaking beauty throughout the Garden’s 385 acres of woods, 81 acres of waterways, 24 formal display gardens, and four natural areas.
Garden horticulturists curate a major collection of more than 2,300,000 plants consisting of 8,979 different kinds of plants (taxa). Additionally, in an average year, Garden horticulturists produce 65,000 spring annuals, 80,000 summer annuals, 30,000 autumn annuals, and 2,000 holiday plants for display throughout the Garden. The exceptionally skilled plant production team also grows 10,000 research plants, as well as plants for the native habitats and aquatic areas, permanent collections, children’s classes, and visitor programs. Each year, 250,000 plants move through the plant production facility to the rest of the Garden. The Garden’s greenhouses and nurseries play a central and pivotal role in how we engage and deepen the experience of our 900,000 annual visitors.
The Garden is known for its beautiful gardens and landscapes, but the excellence in our horticultural displays is dependent on our ability to grow and care for plants. Currently, all plants are grown in the Garden’s decaying, inadequate, and inefficient greenhouses and nurseries, which are the same size now as they were when the Garden had only one display garden and a collection of 100,000 plants.
The highest priority for the Garden over the next ten years is to build a new state-of-the-art, aesthetically appealing Horticulture Center, encompassing all of the Garden’s plant production functions. A sophisticated facility is the most vital asset to this premier museum of plants, and is essential to maintain horticultural excellence, deliver a superior four-season visitor experience (both indoor and outdoor), and support cutting-edge plant conservation research. The Horticulture Center will completely replace existing facilities and provide new greenhouses and nurseries as well as reuse the current headhouse.
The new Horticulture Center will be certified LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) to the highest level possible and will invite the general public into compelling greenhouse and nursery areas. The Center will complete the Garden’s south campus, anchored today by the Science Center, and allow the Garden to expand in exciting new programmatic and horticultural directions to further its mission.
History of Plant Production Facilities at the Chicago Botanic Garden
The Garden’s indoor growing space is currently 18,600 square feet with eleven different environmental zones. The original greenhouses were built in 1969 and comprise one third of what exists today. The other two thirds were donated second-hand to the Garden in 1981, when the Garden had only one display garden and a collection of about 100,000 plants. Today, those exact same greenhouses support 24 display gardens and over two million plants. Much of this work cannot be outsourced because commercial growers do not work in small quantities of plants and do not have the expertise to grow a wide range of unusual and rare plants with very specific germination and growing requirements. We will continue to outsource large quantities of common plants.