Garfield Park Conservatory Tours and Activities

The huge glass-roofed rooms bring some amazing landscapes, and spectacular plants, to western Chicago.

The Garfield Conservatory lies on the west-side of Chicago (in the park of the same name) and is a wonderful example of that Chicagoan passion for bringing greenery into the heart of the city. Named after a local-man-made-President, it is somewhere where the tropics really come alive, even in the often frigid mid-West. And at over one and a half hectares, this massive 'landscape art under glass' is one of the largest conservatories in the US. But it impresses in more than just its size. The Garfield Conservatory, built in 1907, was also one of the first to try and create whole flourishing landscapes under glass.

It was designed by Jes Jensen, an important 'Prairie School' architect, who liked to make his buildings reflect their natural surroundings. In this case, the Garfield Conservatory evokes the towering mid-West haystacks, looming over the wide open prairies around Chicago. And it is a monumentally beautiful pile of glass. Inside you'll find an incredible range of landscapes, each created as a whole ecosystem, as Jensen envisioned. He had the revolutionary idea of trying to form landscapes to mimic the natural environment of the plants – and waterfalls, streams, lagoons and cliffs can be found in the Conservatory.

One of the most popular of its glass-houses is the Palm Room. Here some 80-plus species of palm tree are conserved, which once included a massive 50-year old Double Coconut Palm. This popular attraction flourished until recently in 2012 it died in mysterious circumstances. There are also lush ferns forests, some over three-centuries old here, rubbing leaves with annual plants that are grown to fill the surrounding park's flower beds.

Garfield Conservatory isn't just for display though – it brings the community in too, with drama performances, dances, music, bee-keeping lessons and even 'fire jams'. And Garfield Conservatory isn't standing still, either. While still mourning the loss of its historic Double Coconut Palm, it has managed to arrange for a new Double Coconut Palm seedling to be replanted here. There's every sign that Garfield Conservatory has many more years of planting, flourishing and growing ahead of it.