Allen Centennial Garden

Madison, WI

Free blankets? The Allen Centennial Garden  in Madison provides blankets so you can hang out on the lawn! Pretty great idea. This garden is 30 years old and the nearby building was home to the first four deans of the college of agriculture. This isn’t a large garden but it’s well worth exploring. There’s parking nearby after 4:30 or on weekends but it was tricky on a weekday. I wished for more plant labels but since the goal of the garden is to rejuvenate the spirit, I decided to be ok with some horticultural mysteries.

There were interesting Czech crevice gardens. These were developed by a Czech botanist to encourage high alpine plants to form deep root systems. This not only protects them from winter heaving but from our summer heat.

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