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September 2024 by Paige Cox
Beautiful botanical gardens
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September 2024 by George Liebler
Beautiful! Great venue for a wedding and reception
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September 2024 by Craig Schade
Closed Mondays.
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August 2024 by Sarah Heibel
What an amazing experience!!! The gardens and trails are so well laid out with easily accessible amenities like bathrooms and water filling stations. The activities for the kids are a great mixture of fun and education. So much fun finding the tree mailboxes and little hidden houses. We were lucky enough to be there for the big bug exhibit and they are spectacular. Seeing all the native plants and bugs was inspiring and can’t wait to pull some of what we saw into our home garden!
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August 2024 by Patrizia R.
I don't know why I haven't been here sooner. The botanical garden is out of the way right off a windy road. Parking is large and you can park at the lot in front of the entrance or across the street. The entrance building has a ticket desk with the garden maps, a souvenir shop, and bathrooms. Once you enter the garden you can go left and visit the wooded area with the pond or go right and visit the more curated garden. We loved them both! The wooded area offers more shade and nice trails, the meadow gets very hot in summer as it is in full sun. The rest of the garden has wonderful flowers and some entertainment for kids.
There is a cafe in the garden but it was closed when we went on Sunday.
We arrived on Sunday around 11am and it was already getting busy, by the time we left a couple of hours after the front parking lot was full.
The entrance fee is $15 and it takes about 2-3 hours to visit depending on how fast or interested you are in the different areas. Definitely worth it for both adults and kids.
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August 2024 by Rachel Kingston
A beautiful, serene place tucked away on a winding country road west of the city. We spent a couple of hours here, but could easily have spent the entire day. If you're accustomed to botanical gardens consisting of plants arranged in greenhouses, this is NOT that, and you're in for a treat. It feels more like a park or a forest preserve. Native wildlife roam freely through the grounds; we saw several deer meandering their way through the trees, just as we were. Plants are grouped in sections by their native region (eg. Asia, European woodlands), but the sections are woven together so seamlessly, you hardly notice when you're moving from one part of the forest to the next. During our visit, they were displaying a series of exhibits on pollinators - birds and bugs - featuring large sculptures alongside educational material about each pollinator and its unique role in the ecosystem. There is a "Garden of the Five Senses" particularly geared toward children - learning how to truly immerse yourself in and experience the natural environment through more than just sight. My favorite features were the pollinator garden, the lotus pond, the apiary (honeybee hives) and the adorable storybook house and hermit hut tucked away in the woods!
There is a small gift shop in the welcome center, which is itself like stepping through a portal. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the trees instantly make you feel as if you've been transported to a grown-up treehouse in the depths of the forest, and set the stage for everything else you're about to experience.
And, the gardens are DOG-FRIENDLY! I wish I had known this ahead of time; I would certainly have brought my pups along. We saw many people walking the trails with their canine companions. There were even doggie water bowls placed out on the grounds for them - how wonderful is that?!
I felt so peaceful and content here. Great way to spend a day, get closer to nature, and learn some new things, too.
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August 2024 by Becky A
Update 7 yrs later: Wow! Incredible growth and development! It’s only gotten better over time while still being a network of lovely woodland trails. There’s even more for children to see and do, and education and enjoyment for adults of all ages. Very exciting to see the fulfillment of plans that seemed far off when I first visited.
It's a beautiful place doing impressive conservation work. Don't be confused by the name, though. It's not mainly manicured gardens at all, as I originally assumed, but woodland trails with creative play spaces for kids. It's still a pretty newly established place, so it's continually undergoing a lot of changes. It would be a beautiful place to get married, as they have a lovely event space.
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August 2024 by Amit Bhatia
This is a hidden gem of Pittsburgh. We spent almost half a day here. It is an outdoor trail. So put on good walking shoes and be prepared to walk. The trails are lovely. It allows you to get lost in the woods but there are adequate maps to lead you back to the welcome center. Recommended for families with young kids on a good weather day.
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July 2024 by nicole Z
Very cute and walkable garden that features display gardens, rotating art exhibits, and woodsy trails
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July 2024 by Loran Hickton
I was a recent guest of a celebration at The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. It was an amazing evening of education, beauty, and community pride. From what not so long ago was a strip mine has now healed and matured into beautiful rolling meadows with indigenous wild flowers, to forests with many forms of trees and vegetation identifed with clever information shared to present the importance and value to our entire eco balance for a healthy world. There are numerous areas or stations for specific education. All the elements and details of The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden are presented smartly and beautifully to complement the environment and educate with in
Aa
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February 2024 by Jozef Watson
Stopped there to walk around for a bit but nothing was in bloom due to the time of year we went. Still was a nice walk and building was very well maintained and new. Staff was extremely friendly and knowledgeable. Had a gift shop there as well that seemed reasonably priced and well stocked. Nice place to visit any time of year if you're looking for something to do outside.
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February 2024 by Mariah Otto
Very disappointed in the management and this business overall. Incredibly unprofessional and greedy. I would avoid this place unless you want to loose thousands of dollars and deal with terrible staff. -10/10.
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January 2024 by Felina Sutterfield
Update:The Owner reaching out is a JOKE. Don't believe when they try to "make it right". The email they gave out is to a separate entity and all they did was tell me it's my fault for not showing up on time. WHICH I STATED IN MY ORIGINAL REVIEW. Don't try to show face and make it seem like you care just to rub salt in the wound.Original Review:Honestly super disappointed. We TRIED to go to the Christmas lights show but were turned away.To start with, this place is in the middle of no where and super hard to find since they have no signage, lights, or people directing traffic. We passed the entrance without even realizing it and once we finally found a place to turn around (3 miles down the road) we tried to turn into the parking lot but were stopped and told we weren't allowed to park without a specifial pass. Even tho the parking wasn't even half full. This was at 8:50pm. So we were given a different address to go park and take a shuttle that was about 7-10 mins away. Keep in mind, we got the latest tickets available which was 9pm-10pm.Once we got to the parking lot, we had to wait and flag down a shuttle driver because they weren't going to stop. Then we made the 7-10 min drive back to where we just came from.We were dropped at the "entrance" which was closed. Confused we found a worker and were informed that they closed at 9:10pm and they weren't allowing anyone else in. We got there at 9:15pm. They told us we could try to ask for a refund or get tickets for a different day.After going online, it became very clear that this company is not interested in helping you. It's plastered all over the website that they don't do any sort of refunds or changes.I understand that this is all information that you have when you buy your tickets but the lack of consideration, customer service, or just general human kindness from all of the employees is heartbreaking. Not a single person we interacted with in the process of getting there told us that the doors were closing at 9:10. There were so many opportunities for someone to either help our chances of actually getting to see the lights or at least let us know that there was no point in trying to park and ride the shuttle because we would be getting there too late.This is a very detailed and long winded review that I'm sure will fall on deaf ears. We're not from here and were really excited to go see the Christmas lights for our first Christmas in Pittsburgh. Where I'm from, people go out of their way to help you and make exceptions to provide the best customer service and experience possible.Heartbroken.
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January 2024 by Sara M
I’ve always loved the Botanic Garden, but I attended Dazzling Lights and I have to say—it was phenomenal! It took about 1.5 hours for us, between the 1 mile experience, and we ate and drank by the fire outside the barn, and also spent time in the gift shop twice. The lights and music were gorgeous, immersive, and had such a good variety (of music too, some was light and some was heavy/electronic mixes along with dancing lights)! The laser section with the fog was really fun. I didn’t have a “least favorite” area at all. I loved how loud the music was, it really made it like such a production. The sound and light quality were excellent, truly. We were impressed. The length of the sections you walked through were perfect, I loved how long they stretched out, it really helped with that immersive experience. The display at the Lotus Pond was amazing! I don’t have as many photos because I was so lost in the experience. Drinks and food were very good, with the option to spike them and had a great beer selection. Plus, someone was playing music in the barn and the Christmas trees in there were beautiful. The cheese pastry we had was one of the best I’ve EVER had! The staff everywhere were so nice. I was worried everyone would maybe be grumpy because of being there on Christmas Eve, but they were all so sweet. Their gift shop is beautiful, as always, they had beautiful holiday gifts and others, and more Christmas trees. Their selfie stations were very well done, which isn’t easy, we loved the glowing baubles by the barn. I don’t have many photos to share because we were so captivated. We couldn’t stop saying wow as we were going through. This exceeded any expectation or idea that I had of what it would be. I love Phipps, but I would pick walking through the Botanic Garden for winter and, instead, go to Phipps for the spring flower show. I can’t wait for next year’s! Thank you for a beautiful Christmas Eve!
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January 2024 by Lester Warby
Went for the Christmas lights. The parking, unless prepaid (which was sold out when we bought our tickets), is a long winding road away, about a mile. They provide shuttle busses to get you to and from the parking and the event. Amazing lights and music. Our almost 3year old granddaughter lived out all, but especially the hanging light strings that all of the kids ran through. I highly recommend this winter experience. We will be back next year!
