Explore the Garden
• Aquatic Garden
• Bonsai Collection
• Bulb Garden
• Children's Growing
Garden
• Circle Garden
• The Crescent
• Dwarf Conifer Garden
• Enabling Garden
• English Oak Meadow
• English Walled Garden
• Esplanade
• Evening Island
• Fruit & Vegetable
Garden
• Gardens of the
Great Basin
• Greenhouses
• Heritage Garden
• Kleinman Family Cove
• Lakeside Gardens
• Landscape Gardens
• Japanese Garden
• McDonald Woods
• Native Plant Garden
• Plant Conservation
Science Center
• Plant Evaluation
Gardens
• Prairie
• Railroad Garden
• Rose Garden
• Sensory Garden
• Skokie River
• Spider Island
• The Trellis Bridge
• Water Gardens
• Waterfall Garden
Explore the Garden
• Elm Allée
• Fountains
• Lake walk and water terrace
• Topiaried yews
• Commons
• The Sower
Watch the installation of a 40-foot tree on the Esplanade and see how Garden staff create the stunning outdoor light display for Wonderland Express.
The Esplanade
take a tour
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The Esplanade showcases dramatic elm allées and a pavilion lined with sheared cone topiaries and a row of waterspouts emerging from pools of water.
Conceived by one of the greatest landscape architects of the twentieth century, Dan Kiley (1912-2004), and designed by colleague Peter Morrow Meyer, the Esplanade is one of the Chicago Botanic Garden's most public spaces, bringing visitors down to the water in a most inviting way.
It is the "front door" to the Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Garden originally designed by renowned architect Edward Larabee Barnes in 1975.
Kiley saw the Esplanade as an opportunity to create a great sense of place and arrival, offering visitors glimpses of vivid sweeps of color against the water and sky as they pass over the bridge outside the Visitor Center.
Visitors stroll past the lovely Crescent, brilliant with colorful annuals sloping down to the water, offering a beautiful view of the Smith Fountain.
