The Morton Arboretum is fairly close for us, and since I love plants you would think I would be over there all the time. But no, adult admission is $14.00 per person, and at that price I want to see tigers.
Cantigny, on the other hand, is a measy 5.00 per carload, and IMO is a better deal for kids. The people who use the Arboretum all the time tend to get a annual membership and then use the trails on the east side for walking and bicycling in the summer, and skiing and snowshoeing in the winter. If you just want to look at Midwestern woods, the
Lyman Woods is free and no one is bicycling or skiing there. Also the Prairie is bogus at the Arboretum, you can just skip that. It is by the freeway, and walking there in summer is like walking on the surface of the sun; instead go to the
Springbrook Prairie Reserve down in south Naperville which is also free, lovely and close to a Starbucks on 75th Ave. (Bring binoculars for birds and a hat for yourself; there are bicyclists). So why shell out all that money at the Arboretum? Well, they have a nice lake with fish and sometimes turtles:
(This guy is about 14 inches long)
As advertised, they have a lot of trees. The cool ones are on the east side, the Conifer Walk, which is actually a place I would walk when it was 17 degrees in the snow and still think it was nice; as long as the wind wasn't blowing. Here's some giant cedars and other trees:
They do have some flowers (in the spring, the Daffodil Meadow might actually be worth 14.00, since the trees are in bloom as well).
They have a ..hedge garden. A big one.
And they have 2 mazes; a biggish one for adults and a cute tiny one for toddlers. They have a play area/ garden for kids but you need a kid to visit it. We did the big one:
I think if you had a lot of stamina and a passion for trees, it would be a good place to visit. I think the next time I go back I will go on a Wednesday, when admission drops to like 8.00 per adult. That seems closer to what I would pay to see big carp. I did like those a lot.
That's a beautiful garden - and the size of those fish is wild!
ReplyDeleteThere were a couple of even larger ones--like 24 inches, but they were too hard to photograph well. Last year they had a lot of turtles in the lake as well--I didn't see them but there is more than one pond and there is a river as well, so they might have been there instead. It's a huge place!
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