How well do you know the Chicago Botanic Garden? Find out with our mystery photo challenge! Guess these objects and where to find them with our close-up snapshots.
Click on the picture to reveal the answer to each clue below.
Clue: Right past here, you’ll find six unique rooms filled with flowers, herbs, and more. A nostalgic sense of romance and beauty washes all around. Within, you’ll find a sleepy stone beast, an aged cistern, and beautiful bricks too.
It’s the English Walled Garden gate!
The Helen and Richard Thomas English Walled Garden is a favorite among visitors and was originally created by the noted British landscape architect, John Brookes, in 1971. Each of its six rooms take you on a mini journey into English garden design through the centuries.
Clue: This shadow reveals a link between your world and paradise—symbolically, of course. Cross it and discover a thought-provoking journey.
Did you guess the Japanese Garden Bridge? Way to go!
In the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden, this bridge is part of what’s called Sansho-En, a Japanese style of gardening. Dr. Koichi Kawana, the garden’s designer, explained that the wooden bridge carries the visitor “from everyday life to a calm, serene, reflective communion with nature.”
Clue: Here you’ll find a great view of the entire Garden and a bridge to plant conservation science.
Did the Trellis Bridge cross your mind? You’ve got it!
With its sinuous shape and curving boards, this bridge invites you to pause and take in the whole of the Garden. Its acoustics are different from other bridges because it goes quiet at the center.
Clue: This object is one part of a pair. It’s made of steel but its partner is made of granite. It’s also a place where visitors can take a load off.
Is your answer Untitled by Martin Puryear? You’re really good at this!
This stainless steel sculpture doubles as a bench in the Lakeside Gardens. The cone-like shape is a signature style of the sculptor, Martin Puryear, and is suggestive of a yurt like those used by the semi-nomadic people the artist observed in central Asia. Having one steel and one stone, Puryear explores the idea of the inevitability of change and the dream of permanence.
Clue: This object towers over the land and casts a long shadow, but it is rarely silent.
It’s the Theodore C. Butz Memorial Carillon!
Did you hear its call? The 48-bell tower has delighted visitors since 1986. Crafted in Holland, the tower’s bronze bells and playing device with a range of four octaves makes it one of the few hand-played carillons in the country.
Clue: If you’re standing in a garden fit for royalty, peek through these terra-cotta tiles to find this place. It’s lined with parallel rows of pruned trees.
You found it! It’s the Linden Allee beyond the English Walled Garden wall.
The 28 linden trees that make up these two rows are very tolerant of heavy pruning, allowing our horticulture staff to create seamless uniform hedge-like shapes.
Clue: This object is always timely—if the sun is shining.
It’s the Sundial sculpture! Nice work, detective.
This painted aluminum sundial was sculpted by Joseph Burlini in 1987. It sits in the Bernice E. Lavin Plant Evaluation Garden between the Trellis Bridge and the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center. See if you can use it to tell the time on your next visit.
Find these spots and more on your next visit to the Garden.