Public Garden · East Marlborough Township, Chester County
Longwood Gardens
Pierre S. du Pont's garden masterpiece: a vast conservatory, dancing fountains, meadow and woodland walks, and a famous holiday light display.
27 places
Public Gardens
Great conservatories, old arboretums and estate gardens
Photo: PA Getaway
Pennsylvania's gardens have deep roots. John Bartram began planting beside the Schuylkill in 1728, and his garden is the oldest surviving botanic garden in North America. Quaker naturalists, industrial fortunes and universities have kept the Philadelphia area planting ever since, and dozens of public gardens now lie within an hour of the city, from the fountains and conservatory of Longwood to playful, inventive Chanticleer and the old trees of the Morris Arboretum.
Further west, Hershey's gardens sit on a hill above the chocolate town, and in Pittsburgh the Victorian glasshouses of Phipps Conservatory are a warm escape in any season. Spring and early summer are the peak, but the arboretums glow in October and the conservatories make fine winter days out.
Our picks
Where to start
Pleasure garden · Radnor Township, Delaware County
Chanticleer Garden
A former family estate turned 'pleasure garden,' with an imaginative ruin garden, a teacup garden, exuberant borders, and benches and bridges handcrafted by the gardeners themselves.
Photo: Photo by and (c)2007 Derek Ramsey ( Ram-Man ). Co-attribution must be given to the Chanticleer Garden. Both parties have shared, contractual copyright control., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Conservatory and botanical garden · Pittsburgh, Allegheny County
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
Orchids, tropical forest rooms and seasonal flower shows fill a glittering 1893 Victorian glasshouse in Schenley Park, beside a pioneering green building.
Photo: Dllu, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Public Garden · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County
Bartram's Garden
The oldest surviving botanic garden in North America, begun by John Bartram in 1728 on the banks of the Schuylkill River.
Photo: Muran.Fox, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Public Garden · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County
Morris Arboretum and Gardens of the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania's arboretum in Chestnut Hill, with a walk through the tree canopy, a Victorian fernery and a garden railway.
Botanical garden · Derry Township, Dauphin County
Hershey Gardens
Milton Hershey's 1937 rose garden has grown into a hilltop botanical garden with seasonal displays, a children's garden and a glassed-in atrium aflutter with tropical butterflies.
Photo: Kris Bradley, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The full list
Every public gardens place
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Reading Public Museum
Art, natural science and ancient civilizations under one roof, plus a planetarium and an arboretum with paths winding around the museum's landscaped grounds.
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Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve
More than 100 acres of woods and meadows devoted to the region's native plants, with trails along Pidcock Creek that are at their best in spring wildflower season.
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Grey Towers National Historic Site
The château-style summer home of Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and two-term governor, with terraced gardens and views over the Delaware Valley.
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Pittsburgh Botanic Garden
Former coal-mining land west of the city, being healed into a botanic garden of woodland walks, display gardens and a lotus pond fed by treated mine water.
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Rodin Museum
Rodin's Thinker greets visitors at the gate and The Gates of Hell frame the entrance to this Beaux-Arts museum and garden on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
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Ambler Arboretum of Temple University
Temple University's campus arboretum, rooted in the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women founded in 1910, with a formal perennial garden, woodland paths and native plantings.
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Andalusia Historic House, Gardens and Arboretum
The Biddle family's Greek Revival mansion on the Delaware River, with lawns sloping to the water, historic gardens and an arboretum of venerable trees.
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Arboretum at Laurel Hill
Rolling hills, mature trees and sculpted monuments fill this Victorian garden cemetery, West Laurel Hill, now an accredited arboretum and a quiet place for contemplative walks.
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Awbury Arboretum
A Quaker family's former estate in Germantown, now an open landscape of old trees, meadows and ponds.
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Barnes Arboretum at Saint Joseph's University
The estate arboretum planted by Laura Barnes, wife of collector Albert Barnes, now cared for by Saint Joseph's University, with rare trees, flowering shrubs and perennial borders.
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Bartram's Garden
The oldest surviving botanic garden in North America, begun by John Bartram in 1728 on the banks of the Schuylkill River.
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Brandywine Museum of Art
Three generations of Wyeth family art in a converted 19th-century grist mill on the Brandywine River, surrounded by native-plant gardens.
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Calder Gardens
Opened in 2025 on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a contemplative setting for Alexander Calder's sculptures, with a building by Herzog & de Meuron and gardens by Piet Oudolf.
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Chanticleer Garden
A former family estate turned 'pleasure garden,' with an imaginative ruin garden, a teacup garden, exuberant borders, and benches and bridges handcrafted by the gardeners themselves.
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Haverford College Arboretum
The whole college campus is an arboretum, with a duck pond, a pinetum and a nature trail that loops past grand old trees and open fields.
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Henry Foundation for Botanical Research
A rocky hillside garden of native plants gathered by botanist Mary Gibson Henry on her collecting expeditions, many of them through the Southeast, and kept as a living research collection.
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Hershey Gardens
Milton Hershey's 1937 rose garden has grown into a hilltop botanical garden with seasonal displays, a children's garden and a glassed-in atrium aflutter with tropical butterflies.
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Jenkins Arboretum & Gardens
Woodland paths wind past rhododendrons, azaleas and native wildflowers around a pond in this naturalistic garden, which reaches its peak in late spring.
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Longwood Gardens
Pierre S. du Pont's garden masterpiece: a vast conservatory, dancing fountains, meadow and woodland walks, and a famous holiday light display.
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Morris Arboretum and Gardens of the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania's arboretum in Chestnut Hill, with a walk through the tree canopy, a Victorian fernery and a garden railway.
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Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
Orchids, tropical forest rooms and seasonal flower shows fill a glittering 1893 Victorian glasshouse in Schenley Park, beside a pioneering green building.
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Scott Arboretum & Gardens
A college campus planted as a garden, with a beloved rose garden, a tree-shaded outdoor amphitheater and trails into the woods along Crum Creek.
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Stoneleigh: A Natural Garden
Replanted with native species, the gardens of this former Main Line estate, now run by the conservation group Natural Lands, spread among old trees, lawns, meadows and woodland.
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The Arboretum at Penn State
The university's public garden, with the formal H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens, a children's garden and pollinator plantings, and the Palmer Museum of Art next door.
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Tyler Arboretum
One of the oldest arboretums in the Northeast, with venerable trees, wildflower meadows and miles of woodland trails.
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Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center
A Japanese house and garden in 17th-century style, built in Japan for display at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1950s, now set beside a koi pond in Fairmount Park.
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Wyck Historic House, Garden, and Farm
Lived in by one Quaker family for nearly three centuries, a Germantown house with an old-rose garden laid out in the 1820s and a small working farm.
