Woodland Garden – Great Lakes Gardens

    at Matthaei Botanical Gardens

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Great Lakes Gardens Endowment Fund

Support the continued maintenance and care of this one-of-a-kind garden, so that future generations can experience the unique living heritage of the Great Lakes region.

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Woodland Garden (dry)

The Great Lakes Region has long been known for the timber resources of its diverse and grand forests. Over time, appreciation also grew of the rich wildflower diversity found here.

The Woodland Wildflower Garden has two basic sections—one featuring dry to mesic (or moist) habitats and a smaller section on the floodplain of Fleming Creek featuring the flora of our wet woodlands. The drier portion of the Woodland Wildflower Garden shows many favorite wildflowers such as trillium (T. grandiflorum and T. flexipes), dogtooth violet (Erythronium americanum), twinflower (Jeffersonia diphylla), and wild ginger (Asarum canadense), ferns, bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), and some of the showier understory trees such as witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana).

Woodland Garden (wet)
The wet portion of the Woodland Wildflower Garden features the rich diversity of our floodplain forests and other wet forested habitats. An accessible boardwalk trail allows visitors to experience the beauty of these woods up close. Featured here are plants such as skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), golden ragwort (Packera aurea), blue flag (Iris virginica var. shrevei), marsh marigold (Calthapalustris), cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), horsetail or scouring rush (Equisetum fluviatile), many sedges such as the false hop sedge (Carex lupiliformis), and many ferns such as ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris).

How can you help? If you want future generations to experience the unique living heritage of the Great Lakes region and would like to support continued maintenance and care of this one-of-a-kind garden, please contact Meredith Olson, Director of Development, Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum,1800 N. Dixboro Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48105; merolson@umich.edu; 734.647.7847