The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden turns family walks into treasure hunts with petals. Fifteen acres inside Theodore Wirth Park bloom in acts: April’s bloodroot and hepatica, May’s trillium carpets, June’s showy lady’s slippers — Minnesota’s state flower, worth the pilgrimage alone — and a late-summer finale of goldenrod and asters.
The garden’s naturalists run family programs that hand kids magnifying glasses and missions: find five pollinators, spot the wood duck on the mallard pond, learn why a flower would bother being blue. The Martha Crone shelter’s staff answer questions with the patience of people who have loved this glen for decades.
It’s free, it’s quiet, and it teaches children the radical skill of looking closely. Bring a picnic for Wirth Park afterward — botanists get hungry.
