Address

1 Theodore Wirth Pkwy
Minneapolis, MN 55405

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Contact

Phone: 612-370-4903
Emailebwg@minneapolisparks.org
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Garden Operating Hours

Garden Operating Hours
Garden season: April 15-October 15
Weekends only October 19-20, 26-27

Garden hours:
Tuesday-Sunday 7:30 am-6 pm
Closed Mondays
Thursdays open until 8 pm, April 15-September 1

Visitor Shelter Hours

Tuesday-Sunday 10 am-6 pm
Closed Mondays
Thursdays open until 8 pm, April 15-September 1

Garden Map

Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary

Part of: Theodore Wirth Regional Park

View Photo Gallery

Improvements Project: Operations and Visitor Comfort

Improvements are currently being planned, with construction TBD. Details and updates at EBWG Improvements project page.

Public Programs and Activities

Please see the links below for more information. All public programs are free, no registration is necessary at this time.

2024 Winter Nature Programming at the Trailhead in Partnership with The Loppet (January-March)

Tuesdays
Winter Tracks and Wildlife Walks [PDF]
Winter Tree ID Walks [PDF]
Winter Birding Walks [PDF]
Winter Nature Journaling Walks [PDF]

Wednesdays
Knitting Near Nature

Thursdays
Winter Nature Storytime at the Trailhead

Browse & Search

Youth and Adult Group Tours

Youth and adult group tours are a wonderful way for your group to get to know the Garden with a Garden Naturalist.

Tours will be scheduled for groups of up to 20 people or the size of one school classroom for school groups.

Tours can be scheduled Tuesday-Friday between 10:30am and 4:30pm as program availability and staffing allows.

In lieu of a tour, it may be possible to schedule a 15-minute introduction and orientation to the Garden led by staff for a fee of $50.00 during a time when the Garden is open to the public.

Please fill out the form below to request a tour.

Group Tour Interest Form

If you have additional questions please email Garden staff at ebwgprograms@minneapolisparks.org

To apply for transportation funding assistance, please complete the form below.

Transportation Funding Assistance Request

Sensory Friendly Information

The Garden has created a Social Narrative for visitors in the neurodiverse community and their companions. Check it out to plan your visit to the Garden!

What Will I See at the Garden? A Social Narrative for Individuals, Groups, and Families [PDF]

Volunteer Opportunities

About the Garden

Amenities

  • Botanic Garden
  • Visitor Shelter
  • Pay parking lot
  • Drinking fountains (May-September)
  • Rustic restrooms
    ADA-accessible temporary toilet (in the parking lot)
  • Walking paths
  • Public art

Good to Know

The garden is home to more than 600 plant species and 130 bird species, and receives 40,000-60,000 visitors each year.

Wirth Lake Beach, picnic shelters, and additional hiking trails located just outside the garden’s gate.

Other gardens in Theodore Wirth Regional Park:

Dogs and other pets are not allowed in the Wildflower Garden. On-duty service animals are allowed (on trails and in buildings) in the Wildflower Garden. Dogs are allowed on leashes in greater Theodore Wirth Regional Park and many other parks in the park system.

Informal photos of plants and garden areas for personal use are permitted while remaining completely on the trails at all times. Posed and commercial photography is prohibited in the Wildflower Garden.

Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Photography Rules [PDF]

Glorious Gardens

From grand expanses to hidden gems, gardens throughout the park system offer flowers, history, sculpture, community hubs and more.

Longfellow Gardens

Trail: The narrow, winding trails of the Garden lead you through a variety of habitats in hilly terrain. Multiple routes can be selected for a shorter or longer walk. The total trail length is over one mile.

Neighborhood: Bryn – Mawr

Service Area: Southwest

Commissioner District: 4

60,000 annual visitors enjoy spectacular seasonal displays of native wildflowers in woodland, wetland and meadow areas. Each area creates a different habitat that fosters different types of plants, animals and birds.

Nestled in the garden is the Martha Crone Visitor Shelter where you will find natural history displays, natural history reference materials and friendly staff and volunteers waiting to help with garden-related questions.

Peak Display Times

April and May (Woodland)
Bloodroot, wild ginger, trillium, bluebells, trout lilies

June and July (Wetland)
Showy lady’s-slippers, native irises, cardinal flowers

Mid-to Late-Summer (Meadow)
Asters, sunflowers, blazing stars, goldenrods

Fall (throughout)
Late-season flowers and autumn leaves

Annual Patron Parking Permit: Enjoy parking privileges in specially designated spaces at some of our most popular regional parks. View parking permit details.

The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden is not available for rentals.

As demand for the expansion of Glenwood Park grew, a new development gave the park one of its signature features, a unique wildflower garden that is cherished still. In early 1907 Eloise Butler, John Greer and others petitioned the park board for space in Glenwood Park to establish a botanical garden. The park board granted the request and set aside three acres of bog, meadow and hillside for the Wild Botanical Garden, the first public wildflower garden in the United States. The board also allocated a modest sum for paths and fencing of the area and on April 27, 1907 announced that the garden had opened.

The person who took charge of the garden as a volunteer was a retired botany teacher, Eloise Butler, who for years had taken her students to the park for botany lessons. Butler tended the garden for four years as a volunteer until in 1911 the Minneapolis Womans Club petitioned the park board to appoint a full-time curator for the garden. The club offered to pay half a year’s salary for a curator. When that wasn’t enough to get the park board to act, the club increased the offer to a full year’s salary if the park board would retain the position and pay the salary after that. The park board agreed. The person the  Womans Club recommended to be the curator was Eloise Butler.

Eloise Butler created such a magnificent wild garden—collecting, protecting, preserving and cataloguing wild plants and offering free botany classes—that the park board named the garden in her honor in 1929. In 1933, at the age of 81, she died on her way to work. Her ashes were spread in her garden and the park board held a memorial service and planted a pin oak tree in the garden in her honor, noting that “Every plant in her garden was her living child, upon whom she bestowed her devotion and care.”

Butler was succeeded by her assistant, Martha Crone, who remained in charge of the garden until 1959. Upon Crone’s retirement, she was succeeded by Ken Avery. The shelter in the garden is named for Crone and the terrace is named for Avery. An important addition to the park occurred in 1944, when Clinton O’Dell, a successful Minneapolis businessman—he created the Burma Shave rhymes seen along highways — and former botany student of Eloise Butler, contributed $3,000 to expand the garden to include ground for upland or prairie varieties of plants, rather than the primarily woodland plants that Butler’s original garden could accommodate. O’Dell also helped form in 1951 The Friends of the Wild Flower Garden, which has contributed time and money for the maintenance and improvement of the garden ever since.

History through 2008 written by David C. Smith, with updates from 2009 to present written by MPRB.

Historical Timeline

August 3, 1851: Eloise Butler is born on a farm near Appleton, Maine. Growing up roaming the woods, meadows and bogs, she pursues a career as a botany teacher.

1874: Eloise moves to Minneapolis and teaches school for 36 years, taking her students “botanizing” in the bogs of what is now Wirth Park. She also takes course work at Harvard University, Woods Hole and the University of Minnesota, and field work in Jamaica and Vancouver Island, BC.

1907: Eloise and other botany teachers successfully petition the Minneapolis Park Board to create a natural botanic garden to preserve native flora as the city grew. Three acres of bog, meadow and hillside are properly fenced and the Wild Botanic Garden opened April 27, 1907.

1911: Eloise retires from teaching and is officially appointed garden curator; for the first time she is paid for her gardening labor.

1924: The garden expands thanks to her persistence, spending $700 of her own money to fence five acres that need protecting. She adds to garden’s collection by moving plants from natural areas in Minneapolis and greater Minnesota, and importing from the East Coast. Calling herself a “Wild Gardener,” she sees her wild plant hunting as great adventure.

1927: The garden is re-named Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in her honor.

1933: Eloise Butler dies while working in the garden at age 81. Martha Crone, volunteer and friend, succeeds her as garden curator. She goes on to rescue plants from impending development. The garden expands and the upland prairie garden is created.

1952: Friends of the Wild Flower Garden Inc. is founded by Clinton Odell to support garden projects.

1959: Martha retires (she dies in 1989 at age 92). Ken Avery is designated head gardener. He adds plants native to Minnesota and is the first to use controlled burns to manage upland prairie.

1970s: Dutch Elm Disease and drought take their toll on shade-giving elms. As a result the garden becomes sunnier, the bog drier and wildflowers suffer. Replanting of trees and replacing wildflowers has been ongoing since the late 1970s.

1987: Ken retires and is succeeded by Cary George. He removes invasive species, installs trail signs, laminated maps and wooden station posts. The garden is expanded by one acre and native wildflower species are added. He maintains the garden’s historical context by adding and nurturing plant species that once flourished there, such as Tamarack.

2004: Susan Wilkins succeeds Cary George who retired in 2003. As garden curator, Susan develops volunteer programs to battle invasive species, expands adult and youth educational opportunities in Garden, and plants thousands of native plants annually. Susan co-facilitated the development of the Garden’s first Management Plan, adopted in 2010.

2015: The first section of a new boardwalk winding through the garden’s wetlands opens. The boardwalk’s decking was made from ash trees harvested as part of the MPRB Forestry Department’s Emerald Ash Borer Preparedness Program. The boardwalk bridge looking toward Mallard Pond is dedicated to Cary George.