The Idaho Botanical Garden just completed the first part of its biggest expansion ever, growing from 15 to 25 acres. This past weekend marked the first time the new space opened to the public. It’s the largest physical transformation in the garden’s history, creating new opportunities for education, conservation, wellness, and community gatherings for the more than 140,000 people who visit the garden each year.
A quick history
Before we get into the new stuff, here’s how it all got started. Back in 1983, local botanist Dr. Christopher Davidson had a vision for a botanical garden in Boise. He’d spent his career as a botanical curator, traveling the world to collect and photograph plant specimens, and he figured Boise deserved a garden of its own.
That same year, the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation kicked things off with an initial grant of $10,000. Davidson pulled together 17 local civic leaders and professionals, got the organization nonprofit status, and worked out a 50-year lease, approved by the state Land Board, for the #2 prison yard at the Old Idaho Penitentiary. The full leased parcel came out to 42.25 acres, though only a portion of that got developed into garden space in the early years. By 1984, the Idaho Botanical Garden was officially born.
The first two acres became the Meditation (now known as the Woodland Garden), Rose, and Herb Gardens. The first tree ever planted here, a northern red oak, went in courtesy of Jack Simplot and still stands today in what’s now the Woodland Garden. From there, the garden kept adding on: the Idaho Native Plant Garden in 1990, the English Garden in 1998, the Lewis and Clark Native Plant Garden in 2006, and the Dry Garden and Children’s Adventure Garden in 2008.
Forty-two years after its founding, the garden is growing again.
The expansion: what’s done
The new 10 acres sit on the west side of the garden, in between the Idaho State Archives (which is also expanding) and the garden as you know it. This new landscape will be home to 3,324 total individual plants, including 170 trees, 518 shrubs, and 2,636 perennials. The changes begin as soon as you pull in.
Parking Garden
The Parking Garden, aka the parking lot, got some major upgrades with the expansion, including becoming more of a garden itself. It was repaved and reconfigured with Idaho-hardy trees and shrubs, plus grading built to capture and use rainwater on site. There’s more bike parking too, which is a major plus if you’ve ever experienced the bike parade rolling out after an Outlaw Field show. The new layout also added more room for school buses to pull in for field trips.
Event Lawn
The new Event Lawn, supported by Regence BlueShield of Idaho, is one of the most significant functional shifts of the expansion. For years, events like Great Garden Escape happened in the Woodland Garden, which was lovely and whimsical but meant a lot of foot traffic on grass and plants. The new lawn is an amphitheater with a stage and backdrop of quarried stone for performances. It’s built for concerts, celebrations, educational programs, and community events, with new pathways and accessible spaces. Outlaw Field shows will still happen at Outlaw Field. This just gives the garden a second place to host things.
Borbonus Family Arboretum
This new arboretum is a major expansion of the garden’s certified collection of trees, made possible by a gift from the Borbonus family. It’ll eventually include boardwalks winding through the trees, interpretive signage, and a small education amphitheater for school groups.
The expansion: more to come
Perhaps the best is yet to come. Phase one covered the grounds and infrastructure. Phase two, which is about five years out, is the building and a handful of new gardens.
Visitor & Event Center and Education Classrooms
Picture an indoor-outdoor building that houses the garden’s admission office, staff offices, and new classrooms for expanded programming. This building will also have an event space for the community and will eventually become the Boise Farmers Market‘s permanent, year-round home. In the meantime, the market is moving onto the property much sooner, on November 7, and will operate here year-round while it waits for its permanent spot in the new building.
Specialty Gardens
Three new specialty gardens will be added during phase two. The Therapeutic Garden, a nearly one-acre horticulture therapy garden, will be built for wellness programming and sensory exploration. The Scholar Garden will honor Dr. Christopher Davidson, the botanist who helped found the garden back in 1984. And the Culinary Garden will be grown for future food programming.
The rest of the garden
None of the existing gardens are going anywhere. Of course, they are always growing and changing, but the layout in this part of the garden will largely remain the same. Here’s a quick refresher on what’s already growing:
English Garden
Opened in 1998 and designed by renowned English landscape architect John Brookes, this traditional English Garden backs up against the old penitentiary wall and holds more than 1,300 perennials, plus the Princess Diana Fountain and a Summer House built from Table Rock sandstone.
Rose Garden
One of the garden’s oldest spaces, it’s home to antique roses bred before 1920 alongside more modern varieties, set against sandstone terraces.
Herb Garden
Established in the early 1990s with stonework salvaged from Boise’s Eastman Building after the 1986 downtown fire. It’s full of culinary and medicinal herbs, from thyme and rosemary to lesser-known plants like costmary and rue.
Woodland Garden
This shaded pocket can run 20 degrees cooler than open areas in summer. Some of its trees were planted by minimum-security inmates who ran a tree nursery on this land in the 1960s. This is also where the koi pond is located.
Dry Garden
Full of cacti and other desert plants that survive on next to no water. When the cacti bloom, the whole desert palette changes.
Children’s Adventure Garden
Built for climbing, digging, and exploring. There’s a musical trail, sensory beds, a mini kitchen garden, and the Colored Pencil Bench.
Vegetable Garden
This seasonal garden is not only a source of summer veggies, but also a multitude of colorful annual flowers. Produce grown here gets donated to the BSU Food Pantry in partnership with City of Good.
Idaho Native Plant Garden
Built in 1990 with the Pahove Chapter of the Idaho Native Plant Society, this garden showcases native grasses, forbs, trees, and shrubs suited to our high desert climate.
Lewis and Clark Native Plant Garden
Opened in 2006 for the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, this garden is organized into four zones (Canyon, Prairie, Mountain, and Wetland) and planted with species the expedition collected along the way. The drought-tolerant Western Waterwise Garden sits within its boundaries.
Firewise Garden
Just past the Woodland Garden, this space shows off more than 300 fire-resistant plant species and techniques homeowners can use to protect their own properties.
Exhibits & events
Besides growing plants, flowers, and trees, the garden hosts a lot of really fun events and exhibits. Here’s what you can catch through the end of the year:
Woodland Wonders Exhibit (through Sept 30)
A traveling exhibit featuring 21 sculptures scattered throughout the garden, created and installed by Atlanta-based blacksmith and sculptor Huelani Mei. It’s super cool, and it’s included with regular admission. More info here.
Bug Day (Sept 19)
The garden’s 25th annual celebration brings tons of hands-on bug activities, microscope stations, a 30-foot tree house slide, a silent disco, face painting, and a visit from Bitsy the giant praying mantis. Tickets are $17 for adults and $13 for kids 3-12, with discounted member pricing.
Scarecrow Stroll (Oct 1-Nov 2)
Wander the garden and vote on handcrafted scarecrows built by local families, schools, and businesses. The winner takes home a Garden Friend membership. It’s included with regular admission.
Winter Garden aGlow (Late Nov – Dec 31)
The garden’s biggest fundraiser of the year wraps the grounds in more than 500,000 lights. Along with the lights, expect wintry touches like hot cocoa, visits from Santa, and other seasonal activities. Tickets go on sale in November.
Go see it for yourself
The Idaho Botanical Garden is open daily from 9am to 5pm, with last admission at 4pm, at 2355 Old Penitentiary Road. Adult admission is $15, with discounts for seniors, students, and kids, and it’s free for members and kids age 3 and under.
Whether you’ve been a hundred times or never made it past Outlaw Field, take a trip to the garden this fall. There’s 10 new acres, 40+ years of history, and 21 sculptures to explore.
Thanks for reading!
With love from Boise,
Marissa
This story is sponsored by Idaho Botanical Garden
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