Get Tickets Now for Lakewood’s Behind-the-Scenes Greenhouse Tours

If you’ve never wandered the beautiful grounds of Minneapolis’ Lakewood Cemetery, Earth Day would probably not be a great day to start since our Minnesota winter is hanging on strong this year. Undeterred, Lakewood is celebrating Earth Day by inviting the public to come for a visit anytime between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on April 22, 2018. The big attraction of the day is the chance to tour Lakewood’s expansive greenhouses. Tickets are free but your spot needs to be reserved here. A $5 donation is appreciated and proceeds will go toward Lakewood’s Permanent Care and Improvement Fund.

Lakewood greenhouses are packed with flowers dreaming of spring. —Courtesy of Lakewood

Groundskeepers are busy tending thousands of flowers in the greenhouses right now in anticipation of spring, so even if it is still cold and snowy outside, the greenhouses will feel like paradise. After the tour, attendees will have a chance to pot up a plant to take home if they would like to.

Event Details
Space is limited so reserving your time slot is a good idea. Get your advance ticket now. Greenhouse tours are approximately 25-30 minutes long, and are offered between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. The planting activity takes place in the greenhouse immediately following each tour.

• Lakewood is located at 3600 Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis
• Parking is available along roads inside the cemetery
• This event is open to the public; all are welcome to visit the grounds during open hours from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (spring/summer visiting hours). Self-guided tour brochures of art and history at Lakewood will also be available; visitors can download Lakewood’s mobile app for more tour options.

About Lakewood: Situated just steps from Lake Calhoun, Lakewood has one of the country’s largest cemetery greenhouse operations. I’ve been to a few talks on Lakewood’s unique horticultural history so I could have explained some of that to you but, happily, they provided me with a very detailed press release to share, so what follows are interesting tidbits I’ve adapted from that.

Knot bed—Courtesy of Lakewood

The grounds, which are open to the public, include 250 acres of gardens that are home to beautifully designed containers and beds as well as old-growth trees and rare native plants. “Lakewood was designed in the ‘rural’ or ‘garden’ cemetery landscape movement popular in the late nineteenth century when Lakewood was founded,” says Lakewood president Ronald Gjerde, Jr. Because the park system was just getting started when Lakewood opened in 1871, the cemetery’s grounds were one of the first public green spaces in Minneapolis. Over the years, lessons learned in the cemetery gardens have helped shape the development of horticulture in Minnesota.

Garden Temple—Courtesy of Lakewood

In the early 1900s, Lakewood was the largest floral wholesaler west of Chicago. The cemetery housed and maintained six large greenhouses, each longer than a football field. One of the present day Lakewood greenhouses is the oldest standing and continually operating greenhouse in the state. The energy crisis of the 1970s forced many cemetery greenhouse operations across the country to close, but Lakewood continued operating by reducing the size and number of its greenhouses and switching to more efficient, sustainable options. To learn more about Lakewood’s greenhouse history, check out this video.