Garfield Park Conservatory

So this past weekend I took a solo field trip out to Garfield Park Conservatory, which is on the west side of town...I was thinking at first I'd go to the Lincoln Park Conservatory, but then on Yelp discovered that Garfield Park was much bigger, so I went there instead. I'll probably still head out to Lincoln Park, because it seems to be more estate-like, which is always fun. Oh daydreams about living in a large mansion over sprawling hills with a natural oasis designed especially to my delight. Hmmm, maybe going off the deep end a bit...
Anyway, wow! It was really fun. There's something about greenhouses lush with beautiful trees and flowers that fills you up with tons of oxygen and happiness. Maybe the oxygen part is science, but the happiness part seems to be something more. I just get so relaxed and content whenever I am around a beautiful garden, and this was just room after room after room of heaven. And it's free! What better entertainment could you ask for? I actually didn't take most of these pictures (besides the two self portraits), but that's okay. Garfield Park specializes in palms, and they had TONS of them! Apparently there are about 2600 different species of palms (who knew? I thought there was just your basic coconut palm...), and they had over 7 dozen in their conservatory. My two favorites were the Old Man Palm (with all the "hair" on the trunk!), and the Windmill Palm (spiky!):

The rest of the pictures are from the individual rooms--this is the fern room:



This is the throne room:


Desert room!


Aroid room with Chihuli glass flower installations!

Kids Garden:

Outdoor gardens: