This post is all about the Atlanta Botanical Garden, featuring six must-know travel tips for visiting the botanical garden in Atlanta!
I had forgotten how loud nature is. Cities make you forget, dust your senses with fumes and exhaust, assault your ears with honking vans and trucks and buses, and force you to play music so loud, songs are all you remember. Your playlist is your clock, how you track the drive from home to work.
Occasionally, you crave that place, that one boundless, roadless place where time doesn’t follow three-minute hits on shuffle. For me, that place is the Atlanta Botanical Garden, where a fantasia sounds like cicadas and crickets, bees and Eastern Towhees, water flowing and leaves rustling, and a thousand other uncitylike tunes that remind me that sound exists even in the silence.
At least, for a moment.
By midday, I hear tourists (lots of them, myself included), a stressed maid-of-honor scampering after a bride who wants her perfect fairy tale wedding, sirens and firetrucks wailing in the distance. But, go early enough, and you’ll find thirty quiet acres of gardens thick with the scent of blossoming trees and seasonal blooms and hosed hedges.
Here’s how to make the most of your trip to Atlanta’s Botanical Garden: the prettiest places to see, most whimsical events to note, and best places to eat (aka everything I wish I had known before visiting Atlanta Botanical Garden for the first time).
Know Where The Atlanta Botanical Garden Is Located
The Atlanta Botanical Garden unfurls near Piedmont Park. Two little lanes, bent and curved like stems on a windy day, can take you to 1345 Piedmont Ave.
Here, you’ll find a parking garage (and, if you’re arriving by Uber or Lyft, a drop-off lot) steps away from Hardin Visitor Center. The parking garage rate maxes out at $30 per day, but looping through the gardens, as lovely as they are, only requires a morning.
Two hours on average. Four hours at most.
Expect to spend around $15 for parking in addition to admission. I usually reserve a general admission ticket online the morning of my visit and pull up the QR code when I arrive (at 8:50 AM, ten minutes before Atlanta Botanical Gardens officially opens).
“She walked down the little passage: and then—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.”
Lewis CarroLl, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland
Know What To Do At The Atlanta Botanical Garden
Now, you are in wonderland. Here, hydrangeas are morning sky blue, and morning blue skies puff clouds above trees. The trees inhale, and you wander past them, exhaling warm summer breaths. Leaves spill from canopies like bridal veils. When you crouch down, you notice a spider swinging in a silky hammock stretched between stalks.
Top 5 Things To Do At Atlanta Botanical Garden
🍃 Tour The Special Exhibition: every summer, Atlanta’s Botanical Garden hosts a temporary exhibition that feels like a fairytale leaping out of the pages of a storybook. Picture giant woodland trolls and mythical, topiary-like sculptures. This year’s exhibition, Alice’s Wonderland Returns (May 11 to September 15), is inspired by Lewis Carroll’s beloved classics, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking-Glass.
🍃 Walk Along Kendeda Canopy Walk: this forty-foot-high suspension bridge is the largest tree-canopy-level walkway in the United States. From up here, Storza Woods smells sweet, like thick bark and fresh forest rains.
🍃 Visit The Orchid Display House: tropical orchids, their petals small and pale like fairy wings, emerge from pots.
🍃 See The Skyline Garden: where the backdrop is highrise Midtown Atlanta.
🍃 Stop By Cascades Garden: morning dew pearls around Giant Leopard Plants in this lush garden. From a shaded pavilion, tangled in branches and leaves, you can see the Earth Goddess. Water spills from her hands and gently lands in a bright blue cascade.
Prettiest Places To See At Atlanta Botanical Garden
🍃 Earth Goddess: the Earth Goddess began as a rendering physicalized into a steel frame. She was sheeted in fabric and pierced so 18,000 petite plants could be needled in. Now, her tresses are as green as Gaia’s, and her body bears the weight of a semitruck. She is a mosaiculture, an art form where little leaves (instead of tiles) create mosaic patterns.
🍃 Levy Parterre: Alston Overlook provides the prettiest view of Levy Parterre. Boxwoods assemble into the mazy shape of a medieval French knot garden. Dale Chihuly’s glass, pale as ice, rises from a limestone fountain like a splash of water frozen in time.
🍃 Moon Gate: this entryway, as round as a full moon, charms more than the garden it leads to (a Japanese garden richer in history than foliage).
🍃 Luminous Birds: Anne Cox Garden’s three luminous birds are ten feet tall, thirty(ish) pounds of mesh and metal, and bottom-lit at night. The flock grows in the winter—six luminous birds by Christmas, two in flight, all designed by Parisian artist Cedric Le Borgne.
🍃 Tropical Rotunda: at Fuqua Conservatory’s Tropical Rotunda, you’ll be engulfed by palm fronds. Everywhere you look, blades of leaves, some tawny and hitched together like a giant macrame curtain.
Hidden Gems At Atlanta Botanical Garden
🍃 Easy-To-Miss Tiny Door: in Atlanta, tiny doors press against walls and the wide trunks of trees. The doors, part of a public art project, are little (Alice would need to duck her head and bend her knees even after finishing a whole bottle labeled Drink Me). One tiny door, embellished with magnolia blossoms, can be found at Atlanta Botanical Garden’s Vine Arbor.
🍃 Pink Bananas: these bananas, in Cascades Garden, are fuzzy, seedy, and dragonfruit pink.
🍃 Shaggy Dog: Cox Courtyard’s cute mosaiculture has big, round eyes and scruffy hair made from bronco grass.
🍃 Yellow Icicle Tower: Glade Garden is a little further out from Atlanta Botanical Garden’s most popular sights, but it’s worth the walk. Undertones of mint and lemon linger in the air as you meander towards a 30-foot tall splashy yellow Chihuly tower mirrored by water.
Know Where To Eat At Atlanta Botanical Garden
Within Atlanta Botanical Garden are three main places to eat. Longleaf, a swanky dine-in restaurant, is best known for its leafy garden views and seasonally inspired appetizers. Inside Longleaf is Quick Cafe, a to-go stop with a slim menu of salads, sandwiches, coffee, lemonade, and canned cocktails.
Travel Tip: Atlanta Botanical Garden prohibits any outside food and drinks except water (I called to confirm), so feel free to bring your Hydroflask and stay hydrated! Picnicking is also not allowed on the grounds, but if you want to spread a blanket and chat with friends or family, hop over to Piedmont Park, a grassy urban ground sprinkled with picnic spots.
A short stroll away, in Perennial Garden, is another fast-service option, an outdoor snack bar surrounded by bright orange tables.
I personally prefer eating elsewhere in Atlanta (some faves tucked into tourist tracts: El Viñedo Local near Fox Theatre, Botiwalla at Ponce City Market, By George for a fancy date). If you’re willing to drive further out, Le Petit Marche and Toast On Lenox are two of my top picks for brunch in Atlanta!
Know About The Events At Atlanta Botanical Garden
Most days, Atlanta Botanical Garden’s Great Lawn feels the small swivels of strollers, the pinch of a pop-up stand, and the bristly brush of blankets. On event days, the grass springs down and up as a rush of shoesteps of all sizes push into the ground.
Cocktails In Wonderland: held on Thursdays after 5 PM, Cocktails in Wonderland is one of the most popular summer events at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Imagine a Wonderland playlist, an artist alley, specialty cocktails, and Cheshire Cats that send you down a rabbit hole of garden locations. Alice is here, too, in front of a chess set, ready for meet-and-greet photos.
Garden Chef Demos: if you love seasonally-inspired recipes where each fresh ingredient glows, head to the Edible Garden. At the open-air Outdoor Kitchen, chefs host weekend cooking demonstrations from spring to early autumn.
AgLanta Eats: Think food tastings, vibey music, and a spotlight on local farm-fresh produce. Proceeds from this event (which usually happens sometime in August) drip to Grows-A-Lot, a city program that supports enterprising ATL residents who want to transform vacant city spots into thriving urban gardens.
Great Pumpkin Carving Festival: on October 24, Atlanta Botanical Garden will continue the Great Pumpkin Carving Festival tradition, a pre-Halloween spooky season party with artsy scarecrows, a beer garden, and lots of jack-o-lanterns.
Know That The Atlanta Botanical Garden Has Holiday Lights On Winter Nights
Atlanta Botanical Garden takes the holidays seriously, like a straight-A student who needs to get a 100 on every aspect of their winter report card, or else they might shatter into a million snowflakes. So, the garden goes all out for the post-Thanksgiving season (and in 2023, took home the prize for The Great Christmas Light Fight).
Picture a holiday bonanza: orchestral orbs shuffling millions of hues to holiday tunes and the world’s largest curtain of synchronized light twinkling beneath treetops. The Earth Queen’s locks are frosty shades of blue; she’s an Ice Goddess now, hair laced with a thousand tiny lights. Imagine a million more lights clinging to branches and trees and sidewalk shrubs. Warming scents of apple cider and toasted marshmallows – yes, there’s a place to roast s’mores – giftwrap the Christmas spirit.
Travel Tip: Every year, when October hits, Atlanta Botanical Garden puts out a pricing guide (I’ll link it here) for Holiday Lights On Winter Nights. If you want to visit, I recommend reserving one of the value nights! You can do so online (there is a processing fee). VIP tickets are an option, but I don’t think the VIP add-ons are worth the upcharge. Also, the event is really similar each year, so if you’ve been before, consider checking out some other light displays in Atlanta.
| Holiday Lights, Winter Nights | Price Per Adult |
|---|---|
| Value Nights | $27.95 |
| Regular Nights | $37.95 |
| Peak Nights | $47.95 |
Know That The Atlanta Botanical Garden Is Worth Visiting
As much as there is to love about Atlanta Botanical Garden’s holiday lights, I prefer visiting before the blooms fade (my ideal winter night is hobbitish: a cup of peppermint tea, a thick library book, a warm blanket).
I visit once a year now (sometime between the end of spring and September, when the seasonal summer exhibition is on view. Never on a Monday because the Atlanta Botanical Garden is closed on Mondays). The early morning hours are gentle: flowers are as fluffy as clouds, crowds are shy and scattered, and moss crawls on the forest floor.
You can hear the broad leaves of oak, maple, and hickory murmuring to the wind. At least, for a moment.
“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
Lewis CarroLl, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland
General FAQ
Personal FAQ
Thanks for the evocative description of the Atlanta Botanical Garden! Your words beautifully capture the contrast between the relentless noise of city life and the serene, symphonic tranquility of nature. It’s a reminder of how immersing ourselves in such natural beauty can be both grounding and rejuvenating. Your guide sounds like a perfect way to explore the garden’s hidden gems and fully appreciate the calm it offers. The tips on timing, events, and dining will surely help future visitors make the most of their experience.
I’m so glad you enjoyed reading the travel guide, Prabik! And I hope you have a lovely, serene day. 😊
Sincerely,
Anshula