The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden is located in Settlers Cabin Park in the Collier Township suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The 460-acre botanical garden was founded in 1988 by the Horticultural Society of Western Pennsylvania.
The origins of the botanic gardens remain with the McGill family, who owned the land since the mid-1800s. Eighty-five acres were sold in 1971 to create Settler’s Cabin Park, and when Allegheny County claimed there was more than enough land for the park, an offer was made to make the additional land into a golf course.
Luckily, the Horticultural Society of Western Pennsylvania stepped in and the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden was established. Today, part of the garden is within the Settler’s Cabin Park. Other attractions in the gardens include woodlands, display gardens, and a special exhibit that changes seasonally.
The woodland gardens house three different woodland landscapes:
- The Allegheny Plateau Woodland
- The Asian Woodland
- The European Woodland
Each has distinct characteristics that makes it feel as though you are being transported from continent to the next.
The display gardens house four different displays:
- The Garden of the Five Senses is designed for all ages and is a whimsical journey of discovery and fun.
- The Heritage Homestead Garden reflects the life of early European settlers, and the interaction between the land and the settlers in the late 1700s.
- The Hillside Pollinator Garden is a curated garden of native plants that provide beauty year-round and attract many pollinating insects and bugs including bees and butterflies.
- The Margaret Lawrence Simon Dogwood Meadow is a unique ecosystem that has evolved in and out of many different landscapes, today it hosts a naturally occurring population of over 500 native Flowering Dogwood trees (cornus florida).
The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden’s vision is to be a world-class garden for the Pittsburgh area. The impressive size of the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden makes it among top 10 largest garden in the United States.
