Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI, is worth a visit, even in winter.

The 158-acre campus is located at 1000 East Beltline Ave NE, and features a five-story, 15,000 square-foot tropical conservatory. The Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park campus is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday; from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $14.50 for adults, $7 for children age 5-13 and $4 for children from 3-4. For more information, call (888) 957-1580 or email info@meijergardens.org.

Special Gardens and Features

The Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory: The five-story Tropical Conservatory is the largest of its kind in Michigan, with tranquil waterfalls and streams winding around lush vegetation. Take a world tour of the tropics, and see the huge array of plants, including edibles like chocolate trees, coconut palms and citrus. Blooming doesn’t stop when the cold weather outside begins.

Earl and Donnalee Holton Victorian Garden Parlor provides a beautiful welcome into the conservatory. Visitors will spend time acclimating themselves to another era; to a time of potted tropicals like dutchman’s pipe vine, staghorn fern, and blooming citrus and Begonias. Also on display is a Wardian case, the Victorian era precursor to the terrarium that made transporting plants from the tropics on ships much more successful.

Kenneth E. Nelson Carnivorous Plant House is fun for all ages. From Venus fly traps to adorable butterworts, the Carnivorous Plant House is home to the carnivores of the plant world.

Other Exhibits

Leonard and Dora Rosenzweig Orchid Wall displays a constant supply of blooming orchids from the conservatory’s collection, which consists of 3,500 plants. There is also the Orchid Show and Sale that takes place Jan. 27 and 28, 2018. On Saturday, Jan. 27, the displays run from noon to 5 p.m. with orchids for sale from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The orchid display and sales run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 28.

In March and April, the conservatory is home to the largest tropical butterfly exhibition in the nation. Thousands of butterflies, imported as chrysalises from Africa, Asia and South and Central America, fly freely within the conservatory.

Also, Earl and Donnalee Holton Arid Garden welcomes lovers of the hot and dry, with an array of cacti, succulents and other desert plants from around the world. There are two sections—one with plants from the Americas and Australia, and the other housing plants found in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. It’s amazing to see plants from the other side of the world thriving and even blooming in the wintery Midwest.

Inside/Outside

An Interactive Sculpture Experience for Families is a four-season exhibit consisting of eight hands-on, educational stations, designed to encourage children to experience art in an interactive way. The exhibit will remain open until a new one replaces it in the upcoming Covenant Learning Center*.

*The new LEED-certified Covenant Learning Center is a 20,000 square foot space designed to promote interactive learning, foster creative thinking, integrate technology, and support a wide range of educational offerings. They have scheduled it for completion by the end of 2018.