The Atlanta Botanical Garden has a special treat for summertime visitors. Joining permanent topiary sculptures from the 2013-14 exhibit of the International Mosaiculture’s Shaggy Dog and the Earth Goddess is a brand new Imaginary Worlds exhibit that will run May 5^th through October 28th, 2018. Artists make the sculptures using a centuries-old art of covering metal forms with living plant material.

Shaggy Dog Topiary: Photo by Jean Starr

“After the (2014) exhibition closed, we purchased the Earth Goddess, and later International Mosaiculture donated the Shaggy Dog to us in honor of our volunteers, who had planned to raise the necessary money to purchase him because they had grown so fond of him,” said Danny Flanders, the Garden’s Public Relations Manager. This year’s exhibition promises to recapture the magic of the original show. They’re including individual pieces that are even larger than in 2013-14. Some of the topiary-like whimsical sculptures will include a huge dragon, a mermaid and a friendly ogre.

Chicago Garfield Park Conservatory (300 N. Central Park Ave. Chicago, IL 60624, Phone 312-746-5100)

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was one of the last visitors to the Chicago Garfield Park Conservatory before it was severely damaged by a catastrophic hail storm. I was there March 29^th. Three months and a day later, on June 30, roughly half of the glass panes in the roofs over the Fern Room, Show House, and ten propagation greenhouses were shattered, with the panes of the Desert House sustaining significant damage. The storm occurred in 2011, three years after its 100^th anniversary. The conservatory didn’t fully reopen until Earth Day, 2015.

The Conservatory was designed by Jens Jensen and opened in 1908. It was considered revolutionary because it was divided into rooms with special temperatures and humidity levels. The Conservatory is sectioned into eight ‘rooms’ – the Aroid House, Children’s Garden, Desert House, Fern Room, Horticulture Hall, Palm House, Show House, and Sugar from the Sun.

Continuing from the past, the Palm House is the largest room in the Conservatory. Along with around 70 palms, a squad of tropical plants cover the ground and insinuate themselves through one another to create a jungle effect. “In our Palm House, the Climbing Oleander will be blooming in March and April,” says Garfield Park Conservatory Deputy Director of Conservatories, Matthew Barrett. “We have also just opened a new, immersive jungle path which allows patrons to meander under the canopy of large palms and get closer to the plant material and see their features up close.”

The Fern Room

The Fern Room is a visitor favorite. Meant originally to evoke prehistoric Chicago, it stirs the imagination with lush plants, an indoor lagoon and a humid landscape. To add to the illusion, the collection of turtles in the Fern Room’s pond come out to bask on sunny days.

Making up just a fraction of the greenery in the Aroid House are philodendrons, peace lilies, elephant ears and a Calabash tree. The most colorful residents are the fanciful glass lily pads, which “float” on the pond. Created in 2001 by world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly, the Persian Lily Pads came through the hail storm unscathed. Sharing the pond is a collection of brightly-colored Koi.

Pretty much the antithesis to the Fern Room, Aroid and Palm Houses, is the Desert House. Stark and noticeably dry, the plants that live here are known for their ability to adapt to very low moisture. The tiniest cacti and succulents grow in clutches amidst the rocky soil, their taller counterparts erect and imposing. Aloe and barrel cacti are recognizable thanks to the succulent houseplant craze.