Brookside Gardens
public botanical gardens located in Wheaton Regional Park, in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Brookside Gardens is a 54-acre public display garden located in Wheaton Regional Park, at 1800 Glenallan Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland. The gardens feature two conservatories and a variety of distinct garden areas. Brookside Gardens is operated by Montgomery Parks, part of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, and offers free admission to the public from sunrise to sunset.
History
20th century
Development of Brookside Gardens began in 1965 on land formerly owned by Stadler Nursery. Inspired by Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, Commission landscape architect Hans Hanses provided the original design of Brookside Gardens, with the goal of dividing the landscape into discrete "rooms" showcasing plants that were readily available to local gardeners. Hanses later remarked that "the main idea for the garden was to supply the average homeowner with ideas for his own use. Everything you see here is not exotic, but something which grows well in the metropolitan area and which one can buy in any garden center."
After four years of development, Brookside Gardens opened to the public on July 13, 1969. The original grounds, covering 25 acres (10 ha), included three formal gardens leading to a wedding gazebo, an azalea walk, and a conservatory. Because the Commission lacked the funds to hire an architect, Carl Schoening, then Chief of Horticulture for Montgomery Parks, designed the conservatory himself. In its first year, Brookside Gardens hosted 35,000 visitors.
“Brookside Gardens” enters the record as public botanical gardens located in Wheaton Regional Park, in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Brookside, Gardens and public can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3533091. VIAF identifies the subject as 144541699. The Library of Congress control number is no94022134. Authority coordinates are 39.059, -77.037. 4 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1800, 1965 and 1969.
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This entry incorporates text from “Brookside Gardens” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.