Just minutes from Glenwood Avenue, Wirth Lake Beach and Interstate 394, there’s a sanctuary for plants, animals and people too. Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden was first established in 1907 as the first public wildflower garden in the United States. To this day it remains unique, displaying hundreds of flowers that offer a new experience each visit, ranging from the first spring blossoms, the Showy Lady Slippers in June to the colorful fall foliage. Embedded within the larger Theodore Wirth Park near the Minneapolis-Golden Valley border, the 15-acre wildflower garden culls a mixture of native plants with others from the Eastern US and even beyond of North America. In over 100 years the garden has expanded, but its mission at the start and present are nearly identical: to offer a botanical wilderness within the city.
