Minnesota Landscape Arboreteum (July 2007)

Information Desk in Visitor's Center

Scrolling screen of today's events behind Information Desk.

To right of Information Desk - Map that showed garden locations when you pushed the appropriate button, LCD screens with changing images of the garden and events, touch screens to help you find information and print it out.

Overhead view of main Lobby

Seating in lobby

Vignette advertising facility rentals.

The Marion Andrus Learning Center - where children's and school programs were based from.

A classroom with puppet stage

Moving walls allowed classrooms to be opened up into one another. Note the quote written along the top of the wall.

Another classroom.

In the restrooms.

The third classroom with a teaching kitchen. Lots of storage space, multipke ovens, sinks, dishwashers.

A moveavle table with a mirror so students could see what the instructor was doing on the tabletop.

The fourth classroom set up with activities from their free Family Fun weekend activities. All activities were self-guided and typically spread out throughout the building.

An activity from the Family Fun day

Family Fun activity

The fourth classroom.

Activities from the weekly preschool Pea Pods class. Children and caregivers can choose from a variety of activities spread out throughout the building. Includes some guided and some self-guided. Always a planting activity, things to touch and observe, a thematic snack and a puppet show. Families can drop in during a three hour window with a pre-purchased ticket.

Teacher Kits stored in the Library

Categorized books

Greenhouse attached to the Learning Center. All plants are in containers.

The back of the greenhouse is walled off from the front (sleft side) and is used for plant propogation for edecation programs

"Under the Oak Tree" - a nature play area behind the Learning Center

Tunnels to crawl through

Logs to walk and jump on.

A preview of "Under the Oak Tree" in front of the Learning Center

A sitting area

A bare bones structure that kids can add to, constructing and deconstructing.

Another structure that kids have added to creating a house. They added the burlap, some sticks and were playing with loose sticks tree cookies, rocks, and pine cones inside.

One of the girls had found a berry in the garden and used it to write the nam of their house on a piece of wood.

Another structure that the kids were using as a store, "selling" plates, cups and other household items. The kids were from three seperate groups and had been playing together in the area for almost three hours.

A puppet stage for the kids to use.

Some of the premade puppets. Adults were sitting on tree stumps watching the production.

A little elf village with small furniture. Kids could make their own elves out of pine cones.

Tools for the children's garden were kept behind sliding doors in an area built into the wall.

The Children's Garden. Plots were maintained by kids enrolled in the program.

Measuring how tall their sunflower had gotten.

Various activities from the Children's Garden program on display. We attended a weed funeral while we were there.

Demonstration Garden for schools outside the Learning Center.

The Prairie Demonstration Garden

A maze built out of containers in front of the Visitor Center

A formal bench adjacent to an informal one.

A wtaerfall where the water could easily be touched. The stream ran under the pavers on the lower right and you could just barely see the water through the cracks.

Simple path edging

The tall grass prairie garden

Simple paths ran throughout the prairie

A more formal prairie garden with plants labeled adjacent to the natural one.

This path tirned to the left leading into a......

.......long narrow walkway......

....with a becnch at the end.....

.....constructed by a group of students.

To the right on the bench was an outdoor classroom. Comin down the long pathway, I had accessed the classroom from the rear.

Window shades to block sun and rain, as well as help maintain privacy.

A whiteboard in the classroom. The shrub border of the long path is in the rear.

The front entrance to the classroom viewed from inside.

The front of the Outdoor Classroom.

The big exhibit that summer was a maze. The maze was located in the rear of the garden, so they used a series of juried sculptures to lead people back to the maze. The combination of the two was entitled "Art to A-Maze".

The maze.

An exhibit on Linneaus, created from images scanned from their rare books and enlarged for the exhibit. They felt it made their rare book collection more accesible. The black displays were created just for this, but would likely reused.

A how-to sign in the garden.

Another how-to sign.

mthe bird hike trail had a series of how-to signs.

Spices identified on a series of flip signs, adjacent to a spice rack.

The Barn at Gale Woods Farm, which could be rented for events.

A vegetable garden maintained by kids during educational programs.

Outdoor sink in the vegetable garden.

The working barn housing chicken, sheep and a dairy cow. All meat products are sold through their CSA.

They had a laarge CSA with fruit, vegetables, meat and honey.

Entrance to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sactuary.

Small Visitor Center, filled with displays and staffed by a naturalist.

Touch table with various specimens from the garden.

Framed herbarium mounts showing what was in bloom.

A magnet board showing recent bird sightings.

The majorith of the cabin.

The other half of the cabin.

One of the trails - note the brown posts.

Each post corresponded to one of the plants in their wildflower guide.