![]() ![]() The adjoining lathhouse provides a shaded outdoor environment for ferns, begonias, caladiums and other plants from late May into October. Palm trees, bananas, bird-of-paradise, cactus, succulents, orchids, gardenia, and hibiscus thrive here. It inspires visitors year-round with its tropical dome, arid dome, and temperate house displaying plants of ornamental and economic value from all around the world. The conservatory complex consists of more than 8,000 square feet (700 m 2) of gardens under glass. ![]() (Herb) and Dorothy Benedict Hosta Hillside. ![]() In 1995 the garden was officially named and dedicated as the Ralph H. Daffodils provide an early spring display of flowers. Other shade loving plants are intermingled with hosta along the cascading stream and pond. More than 700 cultivars are displayed here showing off the wide variety of foliage colors, textures, and sizes of hosta that are available. Situated along the shore of Hidden Lake, the hillside garden provides the perfect shaded setting for hosta. Justin (Chub) Harper donated the collection to Hidden Lake Gardens in 1980 and Jack Wikle worked to establish the conifer collection at Hidden Lake Gardens. These rare conifers and slow growing cultivars are labeled so that they can be easily identified. Selected cultivars of pines, firs, spruces, larches, hemlocks, false cypress, arborvitae and junipers are displayed in a 5-acre (20,000 m 2) garden setting. This collection contains approximately 600 specimens of conifers. Harper Collection of Rare & Dwarf Conifers A large collection of conifers is also included. Here visitors can view a wide variety of flowering crabapples, beeches, lindens, maples, oaks, lilacs and other trees and shrubs. Arboretum Ī large portion of Hidden Lake Gardens has been planted as an arboretum - a collection of trees and shrubs. Fee sought to create picturesque landscape scenes, embellishing on the natural environment of his property to create a “series of pictures.” In 1945, Harry Fee would donate Hidden Lake Gardens to Michigan State University, and his generous Financial endowment continues to develop the gardens with additional land acquisitions, building construction, and educational programs and visitor services. Fee decided that he did not want to compete with local nurseries during the Great Depression, so he began planting his trees and shrubs on the property. He began with the intent to farm, but after realizing the land was not suitable for agriculture, he began to grow nursery stock instead. Hidden Lake Gardens began with Harry Fee, an Adrian businessman, purchased 200 acres (0.81 km 2) of land surrounding the "Hidden Lake" upon his retirement in 1926. ![]()
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