Visitor Guide
Visitor Guide & Map of Pittsburgh Botanic Garden
Stay on walkways and paths.
Fall & Winter:
October 1 – March 31
Tuesday-Sunday
9am – 5pm
Monday
Closed
Spring & Summer:
April 1 – September 30
Tuesday
9am – 5pm
Wednesday-Thursday
9am – 7pm
Friday-Sunday
9am – 5pm
Monday
Closed
Visiting Guidelines
To respect this land, plants and wildlife, and for the safety and consideration of all visitors, please follow these guidelines during your visit:
Be Sure to See:
Garden of the Five Senses
This garden encourages children of all ages and abilities to touch, hear, smell, taste, and see the natural world around them. Filled with hands-on activities for exploration, this is the garden for families to learn and connect with nature. You also will find the Discovery Cart, filled with constantly changing artifacts, to spark curiosity in young minds. The Weisbrod Learning Pavilion is located in this garden area.
Hillside Pollinator Garden
Colorful, all-season blooms invite you and pollinators to visit this gently sloping hillside. The swaths of cultivars of native perennials burst each season to take center stage. Stroll along, or take a moment on GB’s Overlook to view a pollinator at work.
Margaret Lawrence Simon Dogwood Meadow
Experience breathtaking beauty each season in this open, sunny habitat. Along the grass pathway through the meadow, you will observe many species of native plants, birds, and insects. Spring arrives with the blooms of nearly 200 Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida), while autumn is punctuated by Goldenrod (Solidago spp.).
Heritage Homestead
Early European settlers’ life is reflected on this site demonstrating human interaction with the land. Located in this area are the Ewing Walker Glass Log House, Heritage Apple Orchard, and the
chicken coop.
Allegheny Plateau Woodland
This woodland area highlights trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plant species native to the Allegheny Plateau, the ecoregion where Pittsburgh Botanic Garden is located.
Try These Activities:
Pollinator Trail
From the blooms in Hillside Pollinator Garden, to the hives in the Garden’s Apiary, visit each interactive station to learn about pollinators, why they are important and how we can support them.
Tree Times
Pick up an activity sheet and visit the Tree Times stops along the Garden paths. Learn about native trees and the history of the country. Available at the Welcome Desk.
Discovery Cart
Stop by to examine interesting artifacts and learn more about plants and nature. Located in the Garden of the Five Senses. Available April through October.
Family Backpacks
Check out a backpack with seasonal activities to help explore the Garden at your own pace. Available at the Welcome Desk.
Nature Passport
Take a Nature Passport with activities to enhance your visit. Available at the Welcome Desk.
Letterboxing & Geocaches
Follow the clues to find letterboxes hidden in the Garden (no equipment needed). Or use your hand-held GPS enabled device along with a list of clues to find hidden geocaches.
The Garden Invites You To:
Learn
A variety of engaging educational programs and experiences are available. Classes, workshops, and other programs are held throughout the year.
Join
Garden Members enjoy free admission, special discounts at Forage & Finds, Canopy Café, and educational programming.
Volunteer
Help maintain the grounds, assist with a program, or lead a tour group.
Celebrate
Commemorate a special occasion by arranging professional or amateur photo shoots for events like engagements or graduations.
Commitment to Conservation
Pittsburgh Botanic Garden inspires people to value plants, garden design, and the natural world by cultivating plant collections of the Allegheny Plateau and temperate regions, creating display gardens, conducting educational programs, and conserving the environment.
Offering 60 acres of cultivated gardens and woodlands, the Garden connects the community to plants. Through this innate experience, young minds are engaged, gardeners are inspired, and visitors of all kinds find a sense of calm. The Garden is dedicated to creating a holistic environment for individuals, and sharing the natural world in ways that are accessible regardless of physical or cognitive abilities. While the Garden showcases each season through display beds of annuals and curated plantings for all to see, it also maintains a commitment to the environment.
The story of Pittsburgh Botanic Garden includes the region’s gritty industrial past and the scars left on the environment. As the qualified caretakers of these 460 acres of land, Garden staff and volunteers are bringing life back through clean air and water, a thriving habitat for native flora and fauna, and interactive display gardens.
Land
A portion of Pittsburgh Botanic Garden was once deep mined. This “room and pillar” mining leaves large cavities underground that can collect water and create acid mine drainage. The Garden worked with a contractor to “daylight” coal on this part of the property, harvest the resource, and appropriately close out this area so to not cause environmental issues such as acid mine drainage and subsidence in the future. This 28-acre former coal mine site was then planted with nearly 16,000 native tree saplings by Garden staff, volunteers and community partners.
The Garden demonstrates the importance of using native plants and the cultivars of native plants in landscaping. Native plants are adapted to the landscape and climate conditions. They require very little water or maintenance, once they become established.
Water
The Garden operates three passive filter systems to mitigate acid mine drainage occurring from the abandoned coal mines located on a non-public portion of the Garden. Each year, these systems clean 25 million gallons of water before entering the region’s watershed.
When visiting the Lotus Pond in the Japanese Garden, you can see one of these systems, which earned Pittsburgh Botanic Garden the 2014 Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence.
To bring this pond back to life, a drainable limestone bed was installed next to the pond. The acid mine drainage is neutralized as it flows over the limestone bed, and the dissolved aluminum reacts with limestone to create aluminum hydroxide, an inert chemical that is captured in a settling basin. Water in the Lotus Pond and downstream areas are neutral in pH and free of dissolved aluminum.
