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Pink Peonies .

Garden Collections

Seasonal Highlights

Rutgers Gardens offers visitors the chance to experience the wonders of plants during every season of the year. In wintertime, enjoy a hike along the trails of Helyar Woods, get to know the picturesque holly trees and varieties of evergreens up close, and look for pops of color created by bright yellow witch hazel flowers in bloom. It’s also a great time for bird watching and admiring wildlife (from a safe distance!).

Donald B. Lacy Display Garden 

A favorite spot with visitors and pollinators alike, this display garden is designed each year by Rutgers Gardens staff and student horticulturists to feature perennial bulbs emerging in the spring and colorful annuals throughout the summer and fall. The garden was named for the Rutgers Cooperative Extension specialist who helped convert a bed of irises into a demonstration garden of annuals in 1964. In a nod to its history, the garden will be a featured site of the American Iris Society’s 2026 National Convention. Bearded and beardless irises amplify the eye-catching annual variety and the ecological benefits of the surrounding perennial garden beds.

Student examining flowers in Donald B. Lacey Gardent

Helyar Woods

Helyar Woods spans nearly 60 acres of old-growth forest comprised mainly of beech, oak, and maple trees. Visitors can enjoy several hiking trails to view a hauntingly beautiful pine forest planted for research purposes, several springs and a stream, a meadow, and a thriving forest ecosystem in action. 

A group of people walking through Helyar Woods.

Holly Collection

This is one of the largest collections of American hollies in the United States, where some of the mature specimens date back to the 1940s. In addition to American hollies (Ilex opaca), Rutgers Gardens is home to many Winterberry hollies (Ilex verticillata) as well as numerous hybrids. Berries from these trees are an excellent food source for birds and other wildlife. The collection has recently undergone extensive revitalization efforts to remove invasive vines that grow quickly and can threaten the health of these majestic trees.

Holly branches with red berries.

Edwin J. and Ida M. Otken Memorial Garden

Perhaps most recognized for the iconic oversized Adirondack chairs in the center, the Otken Memorial Garden features a mixed border of shrubs, perennials, and ornamental grasses, along with stone walking paths. The larger-than-life chairs are meant to evoke a sense of childlike wonder and are symbols of health, rejuvenation, and achieving wellness with time spent outdoors. Stay tuned for continued revitalizations in this garden throughout 2026.

Daylilies along the path in the Otken Memorial Garden.

Rain Garden

By following a trail from the Rhododendron Garden or the Sun and Shade Garden, visitors are transported to this quiet space to find shade, benches for rest and reflection, a small pond, abundant herbaceous perennials, and stone paths. The Rain Garden is designed as a model to manage stormwater runoff, replenish groundwater supply, and reduce localized flooding. Native plants filter pollutants from the soil and attract a variety of pollinators.

Visitors to the garden listen to a guide talk about the rain garden.

Roy H. DeBoer Evergreen Garden

The Evergreen Garden provides stunning visuals during any season. From the lush green lawn that is a favorite site for study breaks and blanket picnics in warmer weather to the snow-covered weeping white pine, cedars, pines, spruces, and firs in the winter, this garden provides respite from the bustling world outside Rutgers Gardens. Roy H. DeBoer, a professor emeritus and founder of the Rutgers Landscape Architecture Department, designed this area in 1958, and it remains a vital green space for the local and campus communities today.

Evergreen trees around the lawn in the Roy H. DeBoer Evergreen Garden.