Summer Highlights

Water Garden

This picturesque garden features a meandering stream that flows into a pond lined with wetland plants and offers many shady spots to sit and take in the view. It is also a working landscape that captures excess rainwater to reduce urban flooding.

Look for

• Riparian plants like summer-blooming hibiscus, rushes and sedges, and umbrella plant. These are plants that have adapted to living near the water's edge, and some also help clean and filter the water.
• The rock weir, which helps regulate the depth of the pond. When heavy rains are approaching, the pond can drop to accommodate excess stormwater and reduce runoff.
• Water fowl and other wildlife. Ducks, herons, frogs, and dragonflies are all drawn to the pond and stream.

Native Flora Garden

Designed to represent a variety of habitats native to the metropolitan area, the Native Flora Garden is a wonderful place to escape the concrete jungle in the summer.

Look for

• Wildflowers growing among the tall grasses in the sunny meadow areas in the south part of the garden.
• Aquatic plants, including water-lilies, spatterdock, duckweed, and watermeal, the world’s smallest flowering plant, growing in the garden’s pond.
• The shady forest habitat, one of the quietest, coolest spots in the city during the summer.

The Native Flora Garden is also a prime spot for wildlife. Butterflies, bees, and wasps of all kinds are drawn to the meadow plants, and birds—including ducks and great blue herons—love the pond.

Rose Garden

The historic Cranford Rose Garden is in full glory in May and early June with a second flush in September through mid-October. Some of the original specimens planted when the garden opened in 1927 still grow here, along with a vast collection of modern hybrids.

Look for

• Hybrid tea roses. Almost all of the modern hybrids have been bred to bloom repeatedly into the fall. The pink, double-flowered Rosa 'La France', located in the garden's northwesternmost bed, was introduced in 1867, marking the birth of the modern hybrid rose tradition.
• Grandiflora roses, like Rosa ‘Sunshine Daydream’, many of which are also beautiful fall bloomers.
• Lilies, clematis, wildflowers, herbs, and other perennials. The garden practices organic methods, one of which is including a variety of pollinator-friendly, pest-repelling plants among the roses to promote a more healthy collection.