How to visit the Brooklyn Botanical Garden
The Steinhardt Conservatory
The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is a 52-acre green oasis in the middle of Brooklyn. The easily accessible garden is open year-round serving both visitors and the two-and-a-half million residents of Brooklyn.
Founded in 1910 the garden now features 12,000 kinds of plants from around the world.
Where is the Brooklyn Botanical Garden located?
The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is located right next to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum. There are three entrances located at 150 Eastern Parkway, 455 Flatbush Avenue, and 990 Washington Avenue in Brooklyn.
How do I get to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden?
As you might have guessed mass transit is the best way to visit the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.
Here are the closest subway stations:
Franklin Avenue/Botanic Garden Station - 4, 5 lines
Prospect Park Station - B, Q, S lines
Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum Station - 2, 3 lines
If you drive there is limited parking at 900 Washington Avenue.
The Cranford Rose Garden
When is the best time to visit the Brooklyn Botanical Garden?
The best times to visit are spring and fall. In late April and early May, the cherry blossoms are blooming. During early June the amazing rose garden is at its peak. In fall the colorful leaves make a wonderful scene.
Check out the Garden’s Plants in Bloom page to see exactly what is blooming now.
Is the Brooklyn Botanical Garden open in winter?
Winter is a great time to visit. The outdoor blooms may be gone but the plants inside the extensive Conservatory are thriving.
Also during the holiday season, the garden glows with 1 million lights during the Lightscape exhibit.
Are there places to eat at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden?
Yes, there are two restaurants, one fancy and one more casual, plus a coffee bar.
The Yellow Magnolia Café’s menu offers a range of meal choices from vegetable-centric small plates to heartier main dishes and plant-inspired desserts.
Reservations are recommended and you can make them through Resy. You must have a ticket for the Garden to access the Café.
We ate at the Yellow Magnolia Canteen, on the terrace by the entrance to the Steinhardt Conservatory. It features pizzas, sandwiches, salads, snacks, and beverages. We had some delicious freshly squeezed lemonade and some decadent cookies. We justified the calories in the cookies by thinking about all the walking we just did around the Garden.
Coffee Bar - Serves a variety of espresso drinks and iced beverages along with sandwiches, salads, and soups.
The Garden Shop
The Garden Shop is very large and features a variety of high-end gift items and plants. New York Magazine says the shop stocks the most extensive selections of bulbs and seeds in the city.
Unique artwork from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Florilegium Society is also on sale. Before you Google “Florilegium Society” as I did, it means people who draw plants.
Debbie bought a small bottle of cherry blossom syrup which we used a few minutes later to sweeten the delicious lemonade from the Yellow Magnolia Canteen.
Highlights of our visit to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden
Cranford Rose Garden - We recently visited in early June so the Rose Garden was in full bloom. It was a beautiful Sunday so the garden was crowded but the natural beauty overcame any inconveniences from the crowd.
The rose garden has been one of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden’s most popular attractions since it opened in 1928.
The Japanese Hill and Pond Garden - No matter how stressful your day is a visit to a Japanese Garden is sure to calm your nerves. This one is the oldest and most visited Japanese garden outside of Japan.
The iconic Shinto shrine is surrounded by a pond featuring giant, colorful Koi fish. There are also wooden bridges, a waterfall, and a viewing pavilion with a seating area.
Lilly Pool Terrace - features an amazing 100 varieties of hardy and tropical water lilies and lotuses. While it’s a great stop year-round, the lilly pool really shines in July, August, and September.
Osborne Garden - We entered the Brooklyn Botanical Garden via the Eastern Parkway entrance so the Osborne Garden was our first stop. The most striking feature is the wisteria-draped pergolas.
The symmetrical design is typical of formal Italian European-style gardens and leads you to the rose garden.
Shakespeare Garden - After enjoying the Italian-style Osborne Garden you can travel to the English cottage–style Shakespeare Garden with 80 flowers, shrubs and herbs. Below are a few favorite sections.
Cherry Esplanade - The double-flowering ‘Kanzan’ cherries typically bloom at the end of April. Since we visited in June we missed the blooms but the area was perfect for dozens of people to lay in the shade beneath the trees.
Along the eastern and western edges of Cherry Esplanade are the Liberty Oaks, planted in remembrance of those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.
Steinhardt Conservatory - A huge glass-enclosed complex holding a wide variety of plants from different climates.
Bonsai Museum - Who doesn’t love Bonsai trees? The Steinhardt Conservatory houses a world-class bonsai collection that includes trees that are well over a century old. The collection is one of the largest outside Japan.
Desert Pavilion - A little bit of Arizona in the heart of Brooklyn. One side of the pavilion is devoted to plants from both North and South America while the other side features plants from Africa, Madagascar, the Canary Islands, and Australia.
Tropical Pavilion - This pavilion is 65 feet tall so you can imagine the displays are very striking. The lush vegetation features plants from the Amazon, African rainforest, and Tropical rainforests.
Aquatic House and Orchid Collection - Ferns, mosses, orchids, and waterfalls, what more could you want? The Garden’s collection of several thousand orchids is on display here.
In conclusion, I would absolutely recommend spending an afternoon wandering the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and maybe stopping for a snack or drink.
After our lovely visit, we walked to nearby Franklin Avenue for dinner. The bustling strip features a variety of restaurants, we stopped at Chavela’s, a wonderful Mexican restaurant.
We then jumped on the subway for an easy ride back to Manhattan.
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