Matthaei Botanical Gardens
— a long greenhouse and a longer prairie.
Not only on a wall.
Matthaei Botanical Gardens, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The University of Michigan's botanical gardens, on roughly 350 acres east of Ann Arbor along Fleming Creek. A conservatory built in 1966 carries the tropical, temperate, and desert houses under one glass roof; outside, restored prairie, bonsai, perennial gardens, and four miles of trails through woods and wetland. A gift from Frederick C. Matthaei Sr. moved the gardens here from their old Iroquois Street site in the early 1960s. With the Nichols Arboretum in town, it forms half of one of the country's larger university garden systems. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
The Matthaei Botanical Gardens occupy roughly 350 acres east of Ann Arbor, along Fleming Creek in Ann Arbor Township. The University of Michigan opened the current site in 1962, moving from a smaller in-town property after a gift from industrialist Frederick C. Matthaei Sr. The Alexandra Hicks Herrada Conservatory, built in 1966, holds tropical, temperate, and arid houses under one roof. Outside, restored prairie, perennial gardens, a bonsai collection, and roughly four miles of natural-area trails run through woods, wetland, and a section of Fleming Creek. Together with Nichols Arboretum, Matthaei forms the university's combined garden system.
Each season turns a different room of the gardens forward. The conservatory holds the same warm green year-round, but the outdoor gardens cycle hard: spring ephemerals in the woodland, peonies in late May, the perennial border at its fullest in July, the prairie in August and September, late asters into October. Fleming Creek runs through it all. Winter empties the outdoor gardens and concentrates the visit inside the glass — the desert house and the temperate house carry the cold months.
The gardens are open daily; admission to the grounds and trails is free, with a small fee to enter the conservatory. Parking is paid by the hour at the visitor centre. The natural-area trail network runs roughly four miles through woodland, prairie, and along Fleming Creek and is open dawn to dusk. Matthaei sits about a fifteen-minute drive east of central Ann Arbor; Nichols Arboretum, the university's other garden site, is closer to campus along the Huron River.
