Chicago Botanic Garden

Horticultural programs - the Garden comprises 385 acres, including 81 acres of lakes and waterways, a 15 acre Illinois prairie, and 100 acres of native woodlands. There are 28 display gardens representing unique designs, such as the english walled Garden, the japanese Garden, and the fruit and vegetable island. In 2023, the plant collection of the Garden totals 2,907,901 living plants. The total number of active accessions (accession records) is 28,599 with the taxa in the permanent collections numbering 14,312. A total of 242 families are represented. The plant collections department at the Garden oversees the acquisition of plants and seeds from nurseries, arboreta, Botanic gardens, plant breeding programs, and collecting expeditions to many foreign countries.

Visitor services: 1,219,000 people visited the Garden in 2023, from throughout the Chicago area, the midwest, the nation and the world. The Garden features a wide variety of indoor and outdoor events, activities, programming and exhibitions.the Garden also hosts dozens of flower shows and sales, and is the site of educational programming for visitors of all ages and weekend family classes.

Plant conservation - the Garden is recognized as an important player in international plant conservation and a leader in ornamental plant development. Its plant breeding, evaluation, and introduction efforts are creating new and improved plants for midwest gardens, and its division of plant science and conservation is working on the most pressing environmental issues of our time, including invasiveness, loss of plant species biodiversity, and habitat conservation.

Educational programs - through the joseph regenstein, jr. school of the Chicago Botanic Garden and a variety of educational and community outreach programs, the Garden seeks to become the nation's preeminent teaching Garden, with programming for students of all ages, including camp cbg (for ages 2-12), nature preschool, and science first, windy city harvest youth farm, and college first (for middle and high school students). College students and post-graduates participate in various intern programs, some in partnership with area universities. Finally, hundreds of classes, workshops, symposia, and eleven professional certificate programs are available through the joseph regenstein, jr. school. Each year approximately 150,000 are reached through these programs.

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