Garfield Park Conservatory

The best way to escape multiple consecutive polar vortexes is by visiting the Garfield Park Conservatory.  It's like stepping off an airplane in the Amazon.  This is one of Chicago's great hidden (and free) wonders.

From www.garfieldconservatory.org:

"The Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago, Illinois is one of the largest and most stunning conservatories in the nation.  Often referred to as “landscape art under glass”, the Garfield Park Conservatory occupies approximately 4.5 acres inside and out, and includes cold frames and propagating where thousands of plants are grown each year for displays in city parks and spaces.  Garfield Park Conservatory is located in Garfield Park – a 184-acre site located on Chicago’s redeveloping Westside designed as a pleasure ground by William LeBaron Jenney – and is the oldest of the three great Westside parks (Humboldt, Garfield, and Douglas)."

Banana palm

Papayas

Aimee spying on ferns.

Desert echinoderms

The beautiful desert room.

"Who loves a garden, loves a green-house too.

Unconscious of a less propitious clime

There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug,

While the winds whistle and the snows descend."

-William Cowper

The Task,

1785