Flower Power
Dallas Arboretum ranks among the best botanical gardens in America
- The Travel Channel named the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden one of the best in the U.S.Photo by Rod Lindley
- Tulips are among the half a million flowers during Dallas Blooms.Photo by Rod Lindley
- The Chihuly exhibition at the Dallas Arboretum reeled in nearly half a million visitors in 2012.Photo by Rod Lindley
- The Dallas Arboretum hosts concerts during the spring and summer season.Photo courtesy of Dallas Arboretum
- In the fall, the Dallas Arboretum is filled with thousands of pumpkins, gourds and squash.Photo By Rod Lindley
- The Dallas Arboretum brought in a real reindeer during the 2012 holiday festivities.Photo by Rod Lindley
It’s hardly news to us that Dallas has one of the best botanical gardens in the United States. But we’ll take the praise, anyway. Recently Travel Channel included Dallas Arboretum on its list of the 12 best botanical gardens in the nation.
“Dallas is known as the city that does it big, and the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden doesn’t hold back,” the Travel Channel reported.
Duh. Between the 66 acres of flora overlooking White Rock Lake; the annual Dallas Blooms spring flower fest; the enormous fall pumpkin patch with more than 50,000 pumpkins, gourds and squash; last year’s mind-blowing Chihuly exhibition; and family-friendly concert series and holiday festivities, we think Dallas has those other 11 cities beat.
Does Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden really count? We’d take azaleas, tulips and cherry blossoms over prickly succulents any day.
We may be biased, but Richmond,Virginia; St. Louis, Missouri; Columbus, Ohio; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Washington D.C.; San Francisco; Atlanta; New York City; Chicago; and Coral Gables, Florida, can’t touch us — especially considering the difficulties our flowers face in such finicky weather conditions.
The arboretum has received numerous accolades from other notable publications, including The Knot (best wedding venue), Southern Living (one of the top public gardens in 2008) and USA Today (one-of-a-kind floral exhibition).
But where’s our award for best damn botanical garden period? Perhaps we need to plant a few cacti.
