Public Gardens in Philadelphia & The Countryside 21

Botanical gardens, arboretums, and estate gardens open to the public.

  • Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve

    Native plant preserve · Solebury Township, Bucks County

    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.

  • Rodin Museum

    Art museum · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

    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.

  • Ambler Arboretum of Temple University

    Public Garden · Upper Dublin Township, Montgomery County

    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.

  • Andalusia Historic House, Gardens and Arboretum

    Public Garden · Bensalem Township, Bucks County

    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.

  • Arboretum at Laurel Hill

    Public Garden · Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County

    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.

  • Awbury Arboretum

    Public Garden · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

    A Quaker family's former estate in Germantown, now an open landscape of old trees, meadows and ponds.

  • Barnes Arboretum at Saint Joseph's University

    Public Garden · Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County

    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.

  • Bartram's Garden

    Public Garden · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

    The oldest surviving botanic garden in North America, begun by John Bartram in 1728 on the banks of the Schuylkill River.

  • Brandywine Museum of Art

    Museum · Chadds Ford Township, Delaware County

    Three generations of Wyeth family art in a converted 19th-century grist mill on the Brandywine River, surrounded by native-plant gardens.

  • Calder Gardens

    Public Garden · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

    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.

  • Chanticleer Garden

    Pleasure garden · Radnor Township, Delaware County

    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.

  • Haverford College Arboretum

    Public Garden · Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County

    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.

  • Henry Foundation for Botanical Research

    Public Garden · Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County

    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.

  • Jenkins Arboretum & Gardens

    Public Garden · Tredyffrin Township, Chester County

    Woodland paths wind past rhododendrons, azaleas and native wildflowers around a pond in this naturalistic garden, which reaches its peak in late spring.

  • Longwood Gardens

    Public Garden · East Marlborough Township, Chester County

    Pierre S. du Pont's garden masterpiece: a vast conservatory, dancing fountains, meadow and woodland walks, and a famous holiday light display.

  • Morris Arboretum and Gardens of the University of Pennsylvania

    Public Garden · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

    The University of Pennsylvania's arboretum in Chestnut Hill, with a walk through the tree canopy, a Victorian fernery and a garden railway.

  • Scott Arboretum & Gardens

    Public Garden · Swarthmore, Delaware County

    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.

  • Stoneleigh: A Natural Garden

    Public Garden · Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County

    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.

  • Tyler Arboretum

    Public Garden · Middletown Township, Delaware County

    One of the oldest arboretums in the Northeast, with venerable trees, wildflower meadows and miles of woodland trails.

  • Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center

    Public Garden · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

    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.

  • Wyck Historic House, Garden, and Farm

    Historic Site · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

    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.