Twelve beds of colorful summer annuals and tropical plants surround the Bates Fountain. This large formal garden is located just south of the Lincoln Park Conservatory.
This is one of Chicago's oldest existing gardens. Designed and planted in the late 1870s, it was one of several landscape improvements made when the park was expanded from its original sixty acres to new boundaries between Diversey Pkwy. and North Ave. (Today, the park stretches from Ardmore St. to Ohio St.) The garden originally surrounded the park's first greenhouse, which dated to the same period. Flowers propagated in the greenhouse were planted in the garden. The formal design of this "French style" garden was considered especially appropriate as the setting of a horticultural facility. The garden remained after the greenhouse was demolished in 1890 and replaced with the impressive Victorian conservatory, which still stands today. It is noteworthy that this formal French garden is adjacent to the historic Grandmother's Garden, an English style cottage garden located on the west side of Stockton Drive.
This formal garden been the setting for important works of sculpture since its early history. The landscape centers around the 1887 Eli Bates Fountain, which is also known as Storks at Play. There is also a monument to Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, "prince of poets," at the south side of the site.
