The Bronx Botanical Garden, formally known as the New York Botanical Garden, is unquestionably one of the world’s best municipal gardens. Founded in 1891, Bronx Botanical Gardens is also a leading regional education center of horticulture. For a plant lover, this is heaven. For a casual fan of trees and flowers, a trip to New York Botanical Garden Bronx might just be the thing to launch you into the ‘plant lover’ category. Either way, the Garden is so exquisite that it tends to be consistently found on even the savviest New Yorker’s suggested itinerary.

Distinguished as a National Historic Landmark, Bronx Botanical Garden boasts 27 specialty gardens, as well as just letting Mother Nature do her best by leaving forty acres of uncut New York forestland. A visit to this forest in the Bronx is like going back in time, before the area that is now New York City was claimed by European settlers and subsequently annexed by stone, cement, steel and brick. A walk through this natural terrain-- complete with hills, ponds, river waterfalls, and natural rock outcroppings, is a perfect silent sanctuary in the middle of a week of Midtown sounds and Broadway shows. The plants of the Bronx Botanical Gardens seem to breathe for you, replenishing you deeply as you walk among them.

Perhaps one of the best things to do in New York for families, New York Botanical Garden Bronx is the home of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, a place where families are encouraged to play in the dirt together. Here you can plant flowers and vegetables with your loved ones, learn about the art and science of caring for plants, and just generally have some good clean fun. Just don’t plan on staying clean. For kids aged 2-12, Bronx Botanical Gardens offers the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, which is another hands-on, fun, and educational option for your little ones. Looking through microscopes in the lab, feeling water plants in the “touch tank”, or participating in one of the season’s scheduled adventures are all things that will get your kids thinking green. Bronx Botanical Garden is a place that may surprise you and your kids with how exciting plants can truly be.

If you are in New York during the holiday season, be sure to check out the Bronx Botanical Garden as it exhibits the Holiday Train Show, an array of plants trimmed to resemble famous New York City landmarks.

The New York Botanical Garden Bronx is accessible to those on foot as well as those more comfortable on a golf cart tour or viewing the wonders from a tram. The Bronx Botanical Gardens take up 240 acres of Bronx Park, and are open from 10-6 during the summer season (April-Oct) and 10-5 during the remaining months.

To get there, take the Metro North from Grand Central Station to the New York Botanical Garden station, which is about a twenty minute ride. To use the NYC Subway, take the D or 4 train to the Bedford Park station, and walk southeast 8 blocks on Bedford Park Blvd.

If fresh orchids and the freshly cut grass of the infield both interest you, visit New York Botanical Garden along with historic Yankee Stadium for a very green New York City day trip.