Oak Park Conservatory
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Oak Park Conservatory is a conservatory and botanical garden located at 615 Garfield Street, Oak Park, Illinois. It is open daily with restricted hours; a donation is suggested.
The conservatory started in 1914 as a community effort to house exotic plants collected during residents' travels. Today's Edwardian-style glass structure was built in 1929 but fell into neglect until 1970, when a group of concerned citizens preserved it. It was then expanded in 2000.
The conservatory now provides 8,000 square feet of growing areas, making it the third largest conservatory in the Chicago area, and contains more than 3,000 plants, some of which date back to 1914. Major collections are as follows:
- Desert - three cactus groups (cereus, opuntia, and pereskia), plus succulents including agave, crassula, succulent euphorbias, gasteria, haworthia, and kalanchoe. Woody plants in this room include olive, etrog, fig, date palm, bay, and pomegranate.
- Orchids and ferns - orchids, Australian tree ferns and other tropic and sub-tropic fern species, as well as begonias, clivia, Ponderosa lemon, sea grape, Strelitzia reginae, and syzygium.
- Rainforest - anthurium, aroids, banana, cycads, dracaenas, ferns, fig trees, Monstera deliciosa, palms (lady, fishtail, fan, and Canary Island date), papaya, peperomia, pilea, spider plants, as well as a pond with koi, goldfish, and turtles.
In addition to its collections, the conservatory grows about 20,000 bedding plants annually for planting in public parks and sites throughout Oak Park.
