Just Outside DC

General Information for Brookside Gardens 50-acres of gardens and special exhibits live butterfly Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy and Brookside Garden Gardens of Lights. JustoutsideDC.com provides lots of photos and comments regarding the gardens, location, parking, picnic areas, child play areas, nearby eateries, shopping, and other nearby attractions.

Brookside Garden's 50 acres of outside gardens and conservatories have been open to visitors since 1969.

Located outside of the Washington, DC beltway in Wheaton, Maryland (northeast of Washington D.C.) off of Randolph Road on Glenallan Avenue.
There are two entrances: 1500 Glenallan Avenue and 1800 Glenallan Avenue.

When you turn from Randolph Road onto Glenallan Avenue you leave the bustle of urban living. Glenallan Avenue looks very rural, is one lane each way of traffic, and slopes downwards. At the first stop sign on Glenallan Avenue, a right-hand turn takes you into the driveway for the 1500 Glenallan Avenue entrance into Brookside Gardens. The Visitor Center and its parking lot is at 1500 Glenallan Avenue. The second entrance, 1800 Glenallan Avenue, has a parking lot for the conservatory building and is where the permanent tropical garden is on display. These two parking lots are not connected; you have to return onto Glenallan Avenue to access each of the parking lots.

No matter which entrance you take, immediately you find a tall gate to keep deer out of Brookside Gardens.

A sign asks that you wait to touch the entrance pad for the gate until deer clear away. We have never had to wait on deer to enter, but apparently keeping munching deer out is a problem.

The Brookside Gardens map given out at the information desk and gift shops states that the parking lots for both entrances have bus parking. I suggest you call Brookside Gardens first before attempting to bring a vehicle larger than a pickup into their parking lots, as I did not see any oversize parking spots.

The roadways were asphalted and in good condition.

Information on the Brookside Gardens map states no food, drink, or picnicking, but we saw that several groups of people had brought in light food and were picnicking on blankets near the parked cars.

There are a nice bunch of trees all around the grassy areas near the parking lot off of 1500 Glenallan Avenue. The parking area at 1800 Glenallan Avenue is more sunny.

On the late summer day that we visited, we parked at the 1500 Glenallan Avenue parking lot because we wanted to walk the pathways to and from the Visitor Center down to the conservatory.

On a cooler winter day we always park at the 1800 Glenallan Avenue parking lot which is right outside of the conservatory building.

There are two types of walkways around the property: hard surfaced and soft (wood chip covered). The soft surface pathways weave into the deeper wooded areas. We walked a paved surface around the property. The Brookside Gardens map shows paved pathways to the gardens and there are lots of gardens: azalea, camellia, rose, children's, formal, fragrance, Japanese, perennial, aquatic, and so on. If you are looking for a specific collection to be in bloom check their What's in Bloom.

Right outside the visitor's center near the 1500 Glenallan Avenue parking lot are two wooden benches. Inside the Visitor Center there are two bench seats near the information desk, classrooms and the horticultural reference library.

Other seating, neat in the shape of large leaves, is available in a viewing gallery within the Visitor Center.

For photo ops, the conservatory had a double chair similar to the leaf seats above, the difference being they were in the shape of butterfly wings.

Also in the Visitor Center, near the information desk is a large metal scuplture of a frog sitting on a bench. The frog is human size and sits such that one person can be seated on each side of it for photo ops.

The bathrooms in this Visitor Center are nicer than the bathrooms in the conservatory building.
Within the Visitor Center, both the ladies and mens rooms had several stalls, a baby changing wall platform outside of the stalls and room to move a wheelchair about.
The bathrooms in the conservatory building were tight, the baby changing wall platform was in the handicapped stall, and overall those bathrooms would be a bit of work for someone moving about in a wheelchair or with a baby stroller.

Water foundations are located outside the bathrooms in both buildings.

Both the Visitor Center and the conservatory building have gift shops.

Moving about is tight in both gift shops.

The gift shop in the Visitor Center offers a nice selection of horticultural books for sale, writing cards, good size cloth book bags with padded carrying handles, etc.

The gift shop in the conservatory building offered a nice selection of t-shirts with printed flowers, lady bugs, frogs.

Tickets to special seasonal exhibits such as the Wings of Fancy and Winter Light show can be purchased at both gift shops.

Brochures for several other public gardens can be picked up near the information desk at the Visitor Center.

During our late summer visit to Brookside Gardens, outside the Visitor Center we followed the signs along the paved pathway that pointed the way to the Wings of Fancy (live butterfly) exhibit at the conversatory building. Check Brookside Garden's website for their current special exhibit.

Along the paved pathways, any steps that we saw also had ramps alongside.

There are beautiful views and gardens along the paved walkway throughout these 50 acres.

Off a paved pathway, a soft surfaced wood chip covered pathway leads up to a large fallen tree.

Kids, lifted onto the trunk by parents, were enjoying sitting upon the fallen tree.

We stayed on the paved pathway, headed for the conservatory building.

Below are three out of the numerous photos that we snapped during this visit to Brookside Gardens.

Outside the conservatory we took a look at the Brookside Gardens map that we had picked up at the information desk. We decided to take the right fork in the pathway to go view the aquatic garden as we returned to our car parked at the Visitor Center parking lot.

Wood chip covered pathways branched off, but we stayed on the firmer pathway.

Brookside Gardens

Nearing the end of the aquatic garden pathway we approached the Anderson Pavilion which is a pleasant view to end our day trip with. Thirsty from walking we headed to a fast food shop on Randolph Road. Pharmacies, numerous eateries, grocery stores and various sundry stores are located along the Randolph Road and Georgia Avenue area.

Directions to Brookside Gardens.

	Free full size Wallpaper and Photos! Over 2,000 digital pictures that we have taken.
Nature, Lovely Gardens, State and National Parks, Military, Mount Vernon, Sully Plantation, Marine Corps National Museum, Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Center, many others, plus original background mosaics.

Check out our other day trips at JustOutsideDC home page.

Click to return to our home page for Brookside Gardens.

Click to view our photos and comments regarding Brookside's year-round conservatory featuring tropical plants with seasonal floral displays

Click here for our photos and comments regarding Brookside Garden's Wings of Fancy, special live butterfly exhibit

Click here for our photos and comments regarding Brookside Garden of Lights, winter time outdoor and indoor Holiday Light and Train Garden displays

Click to return to our home page for Brookside Gardens.

Click to view our photos and comments regarding Brookside's year-round conservatory featuring tropical plants with seasonal floral displays

Click here for our photos and comments regarding Brookside Garden's Wings of Fancy, special live butterfly exhibit

Click here for our photos and comments regarding Brookside Garden of Lights, winter time outdoor and indoor Holiday Light and Train Garden displays

Click to return to our home page for Brookside Gardens.

Click to view our photos and comments regarding Brookside's year-round conservatory featuring tropical plants with seasonal floral displays

Click here for our photos and comments regarding Brookside Garden's Wings of Fancy, special live butterfly exhibit

Click here for our photos and comments regarding Brookside Garden of Lights, winter time outdoor and indoor Holiday Light and Train Garden displays