Green Bay Botanical Garden, Green Bay Wisconsin

Formal Gardens & Features Click on pictures, to view larger image.
	The Cornerstone Foundation of Northeastern Wisconsin Entry: A Four Seasons Garden - Up front and center stage, this garden displays plants with a strong emphasis on winter interest. As the four seasons rotate, the garden evolves with a changing spectacle of rich color, fragrance, and texture. Magnolias, crab apples, and lilacs give way to masses of perennials, blooming from late spring to frost.

	Agnes Schneider Terrace - An American Perennial Garden - A broad, multi-textured walk directs the eye toward a dramatic fountain and entices the visitor through this colorful introductory garden. Curving ribbon-like walks weave through the larger garden filled with ornamental grasses, complemented with bold sweeps of floral color.

	Vanderperren English Cottage Garden - The Cottage Garden is a Wisconsin interpretation of the English Cottage Garden tradition. It reflects the individuality of an owner who has a love of gardening, and intuitive sense of design, but limited financial resources. Here, you’ll find a vibrant, mix of "old-fashioned" flower varieties, herbs and vegetables.

	Upper Rose Garden - This garden expands our exploration of roses as time-honored garden and landscape plants. You will find both hardy shrubs and the best in hybrid tea roses planted in color groupings as you stroll the paths leading to the Kaftan Lusthaus (Scandinavian all-season gazebo).

	Kaftan Lusthaus - The Lusthaus is a summerhouse of Scandinavian design. The interior features hand-painted rosemalling and quaint chandeliers. The Lusthaus can be rented for small weddings and other gatherings.

	Stumpf Belvedere - The Belvedere is an example of an early Grecian Gazebo. The stars, clouds, and moon cut into its roof capture the poetry of the view as much as the quote from Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Ellen Kort. It is the perfect spot for a marriage proposal, photos, or other special moments.

	Marguerite Kress Oval: A Contemporary Rose Garden - A new interpretation of the formal rose garden is created in this contemporary rose garden through the interplanting of hardy roses and perennials. Extensive use of shrub roses mixed with season-spanning perennials are part of a trend toward low-maintenance and environmentally-friendly gardens. The bronze sculpture, Serenade, found in the Kress Oval depicts George Kress playing his violin as wife, Marguerite, listens with a rose on her lap. A bench extends so that garden visitors can join Marguerite in appreciating the beauty of the roses.

	Mabel Thome Fountain & Garden - The Thome Fountain is a magnificent focal point and can be viewed from many angles in the Garden. The fountain area is encircled with crabapple trees and plantings of colorful annuals during the summer season.

	Schierl Wellhouse and Garden - The Wellhouse not only houses the garden’s well but also provides shady relief in hot weather. Its moon windows frame three important garden features: The pastoral Larsen Orchard remnant to the left, the Kress Oval to the right and the Wellhouse garden straight ahead as you enter. The latter is a summer garden filled with colorful annuals and herb displays in patterns meant to be "read" from above.

	Larsen Orchard Remnant - These apple trees are a souvenir of the Garden’s horticultural heritage—the former Larsen Orchard. Through the under planting of spring-flowering bulbs, uncut bluegrass and inclusion of rustic benches, this garden seeks to capture the essence of spring in rural Wisconsin.

	John and Janet Van Den Wymelenberg Color and Foliage Garden - This garden demonstrates how the colors and textures of foliage can be used to create a striking landscape. The trees, shrubs, grasses, perennials, and vines feature a palette of yellow, maroon, chartreuse, gray, and green foliage that provide an ongoing display of color as companion plantings evolve through the seasons.

	Gertrude B. Nielsen Children’s Garden: A Place of Discovery and Imagination - The Gertrude B. Nielsen Children’s Garden captures the imagination of children with a tree house, slide, maze, re-circulating pond, and giant sundial. Children can learn about the wonders of plants and nature through their exploration of our Einstein Garden, Butterfly Garden, Peter Rabbit Garden, Dragon Fly Bridge, and Frog Bridge. The plantings in the Children’s Garden are an important basis for the curriculum in our School Tour programs.


	The Memorial Grove - The Memorial Grove is a special area at GBBG designed to provide opportunities to remember loved ones, offer a place for peaceful contemplation, and enhance its natural woodland surroundings. A stainless steel structure is the focal point of the Memorial Grove, featuring the shape of an infinity symbol supported by seven pillars. A verse from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ("To everything there is a season…") is incorporated as part of the stainless steel band on top of the structure. Donors making a $500 memorial gift to GBBG can have the name of a loved one engraved on one of the pillars as a long-term remembrance. The Memorial Grove is dedicated in memory of Laura and Lester G. Wood.

	Mary Hendrickson Johnson Wisconsin Woodland Garden - This garden occupies a tranquil valley just a short walk from the Visitors’ Center. Its naturalized style contrasts beautifully with the more formal gardens that overlook it. Native trees, shrubs and wild flowers surround a bluegrass lawn that was created as a setting for concerts, weddings, and special events.

	Daylily Repository – Nearly 210 daylily cultivars grace the garden with 200 of those cultivars being in the daylily repository planted and maintained by the Bay Area Daylily Buds daylily club in partnership with the Green Bay Botanical Garden. Six beds comprising 700 square feet show off a rich variety of colors, color patterns, edges, forms, and sizes of the modern daylily. Flower types include miniatures, doubles, spiders, and unusual forms (UF’s), which we like to call UFO’s – unidentified flowering objects! Pollen collection for breeding purposes is encouraged. Daylily flowers can be enjoyed from late June through early September because of the wide range in bloom time among the individual cultivars. Peak bloom for the beds, however, typically begins around the second week of July and continues through the fourth week of July.

	Magnolia Collection – Green Bay Botanical Garden is proud to showcase magnolias hardy to our chilly location – on the border of zones 4 and 5 of the USDA hardiness zone map. We believe our collection of 100 magnolia species and cultivars will be a world class showcase as our plants mature. Thanks to the generosity of local magnolia breeder, Dennis Ledvina, the garden has a collection of 74 different species and cultivars placed in 5 areas encompassing almost 1 acre. Twenty-six additional cultivars are scattered throughout the remainder of the gardens. Bloom starts in late April and peaks in mid May. Some plants continue flowering into June.