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Brooklyn Botanic Garden Review

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Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Address: 900 Washington Ave., between Crown and Carroll Sts., Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, NY, 11225 | Map It
Phone: 718/623-7200
www.bbg.org

Category: Gardens/Arboretums
Location: Park Slope

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Fodor's Review:

One of the finest botanic gardens in the country, the 52 acres are a must-see especially in spring and summer. A major attraction is the beguiling Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden—complete with a 1-acre pond and blazing red torii gate, which signifies (accurately) that a shrine is nearby. Nearby, the Japanese cherry arbor turns into a breathtaking cloud of pink every spring, and the Cherry Blossom Festival is a hugely popular event.

Also be sure to wander through the Cranford Rose Garden (5,000 bushes, 1,200 varieties); the Fragrance Garden, designed especially for the blind; and the Shakespeare Garden, featuring more than 80 plants immortalized by the Bard. At the Steinhardt Conservatory, desert, tropical, temperate, and aquatic vegetation thrives. Don't miss the extraordinary C. V. Starr Bonsai Museum for close to 100 miniature Japanese specimens, some more than a century old. Near the conservatory are a café and a gift shop, with bulbs, plants, and gardening books as well as jewelry.

Entrances to the garden are on Eastern Parkway, next to the subway station; on Washington Avenue, behind the Brooklyn Museum; and on Flatbush Avenue at Empire Boulevard. Free garden tours meet at the front gate every weekend at 1 PM.

Cost: $5; free all day Tues. and Sat. before noon. Weekend combo ticket with Brooklyn Museum $11
Open: Mar.-late Oct.: grounds Tues.-Fri. 8-6, weekends 10-6; conservatory daily 10-5:30. Late Oct.-Mar.: grounds Tues.-Fri. 8-4:30, weekends 10-4:30; conservatory daily 10-4. Closed Mon. except holidays
Subway: 2, 3 to Eastern Pkwy.; B, Q to Prospect Park

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