Sustainability
Lurie Garden is an urban model of responsible horticulture, providing a healthy habitat for a wide variety of plants and wildlife.
Plant Life
Walking through Lurie Garden, your senses will be delighted taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of a large, dynamic, and diverse collection of plants.
The garden contains approximately 350 types of plants within its 2.5-acre footprint. You will find 28 types of grasses and sedges, 43 types of trees and shrubs, 55 types of bulbs, and 193 types of perennial herbaceous plants within the borders of Lurie Garden.
The mixture and diversity of plant life at Lurie Garden not only creates a visually striking four-season garden, but also supports an abundance of local insects, pollinators, and wildlife. Working with the high diversity and high concentration of plants makes Lurie Garden a leader in plant selection, management, and maintenance practices.
Animal & Insect Life
The design, management, and plant diversity of the Lurie Garden support a vibrant community of animals. In a quick stroll through the garden, you will likely encounter several of the 100+ species of birds that make homes at the garden throughout the year. You may also encounter any number of beneficial insects such as butterflies, moths, bumblebees, honeybees, various beetles, or grasshoppers and katydids.
Ecological Management
Lurie Garden is managed using a combination of traditional gardening knowledge and forward-thinking ecological concepts. A dedicated group of horticulturists and volunteers manage the beauty, design integrity, and biodiversity of the garden.
A Green Roof Garden
Essentially a rooftop garden, Millennium Park and Lurie Garden are situated over a network of underground parking garages, pedways, and commuter electric train lines. This unique engineering and location situation presents special, but manageable, plant care challenges.
Visitors are often surprised by the presence of large, mature trees in Lurie Garden given its relatively shallow soil depth and construction as a rooftop garden!
