Como’s historic Gates Ajar has a new theme grown right from the headlines

With more than 4,000 plants needed to create Como’s historic Gates Ajar mosaiculture every year, assistant gardener Marie Day usually has a strong idea about her design plans several months before the up-right garden feature makes its seasonal debut.

“What’s funny is that this is the first year I hadn’t selected a theme by fall,” she says. “I just couldn’t come up with anything.” Six months later, the answer was obvious: the “Rebel Loon,” the viral symbol of Minnesota’s community, character, and resilience that’s now seen on t-shirts, beer cans, and tattoos across the state. The image is so 2026, she says, “that even before I’d finished installing the outline of the loon, people were coming up to me, and were really excited about it. They understood exactly what it was.” 

A design motif originally created and shared by Moorhead’s Bernardo Anderson in January, the Rebel Loon is now fully installed on the left side of the Gates Ajar structure, located just east of Lexington Parkway. On the opposite side is a monarch butterfly, the powerful pollinator that makes one of the earth’s most epic migrations. Together, these two Minnesota icons have become instantly Instagrammable, inspiring many visitors who are discovering Gates Ajar for the first time.

“This is the first year where I’ve been hearing from people who are visiting the park just to see Gates Ajar,” says Day, who often spends a half hour or more every day just watering the structure. “The other day, I met a woman who had brought a friend visiting from the East Coast specifically to see it.”

No matter what the seasonal theme, Gates Ajar is a unique piece of Como history, and one of the oldest mosaiculture displays in the country. The installation was the brainchild of the St. Paul parks’ very first superintendent, Frederick Nussbaumer, a German landscape designer who honed his craft at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew before emigrating to the United States. At the turn of the 20th century, building topiary-like sculptures from plant material was the height of European flower fashion. But the flower display also has a distinctly Minnesota flavor, taking its name from “The Golden Legend,” an 1851 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose epic poem “Song of Hiawatha” was wildly popular with the Twin Cities’ early parks designers. 

Day says Gates Ajar typically reaches its peak in early August, when foundational plants like echeveria, hens and chicks, and Graptosedum, and trailing plants such as petunia and ivy are fully grown and beautifully integrated. “The public response to this one has been incredible,” Day says, adding how much it means to carry on a Como tradition that’s lasted more than 100 years. “It’s public art and it is for everybody, so it’s exciting to see how much it still resonates with people.”

A host of recent improvements at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory made possible by Como Friends and the Manitou Fund are promoting plant health and elevating the visitor experience at the same time.

Finding time to renovate a busy space is a challenge familiar to many homeowners. But at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, one of Minnesota’s most visited destinations, scheduling repairs is a next-level headache, says horticultural supervisor Ariel Dressler.

“When we look at the calendar, we’re usually booked for weddings and other events every week of the year,” she says. But when her staff saw an opening emerging between the end of June and the 4th of July holiday, campus leaders quickly seized the opportunity to schedule some long-awaited repairs in the Sunken Garden, Como’s busiest and most beautiful room.

To make the most of the limited time available, Como coordinated with multiple contractors at once. “We had one contractor to do glass repair, another to repair the vent motor and arms, and then, because we had the whole room scaffolded, we knew it was a chance to do a deep cleaning on the star lights, and to update the wiring,” she says. With the whole room in a state of upheaval, it was also a great time to send the bronze statue Play Days off to conservators to make a small repair to one of the frog spouts.

While visitors are unlikely to notice many of these improvements when the Sunken Garden reopens on June 9, horticulturists are excited by the repairs, all part of a series of infrastructure improvements made possible, in part, by Como Friends over the past year.

Creating better ventilation within the Conservatory’s gardens and growing spaces has been a particular focus as rising temperatures put stress on plants—even those accustomed to tropical climates. In recent months, the Sunken Garden, the Fern Room, and the Orchid House have all seen substantial repairs to ventilation systems that are tied to the Conservatory’s Priva system, the computerized control network that allows staff to automate and monitor temperatures and airflow across rooms.

“We’ve been through a couple of really hot summers where a sunny day can generate temperatures of 100 degrees in our Conservatory rooms, so any window you can open is much appreciated,” Dressler says, noting that new exhaust fans are also on the way for the Fern Room. “It’s hard to keep ferns happy during heat waves, so this will be a big improvement.”

In a structure made entirely of glass, creating shade for plants that require it is also critical. This season, the Orchid House got a major shade upgrade that’s protecting plants from leaf bleaching and other problems that come from overexposure. In the greenhouse, the Conservatory has replaced shades in two growing bays with systems that allow for taller plants while helping to melt snow and ice from the greenhouse roof. A new blackout curtain also allows horticulturists to precisely control daylight hours for chrysanthemums grown for Como’s Fall Flower Show and poinsettias grown for the Holiday Flower Show. 

While visitors may never notice new glass panes, vents, and shades, Dressler says they may notice the impact of these improvements in the months ahead. “It may not seem that exciting to our guests, but to gardeners we know these investments are really going to help the foliage appearance and plant health overall,” she says.  

Thank you for your support in helping the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s plants and gardens thrive!

“Alice in Wonderland” is the inspiration behind Como’s Summer Flower Show opening June 12

“The whole show will have a really narrative feel,” says apprentice designer Leela Karlson. “The beginning will take visitors down the rabbit hole, and then going in, the garden tea party with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, and then at the end, it’ll be all about the Red Queen. Visitors will see some fun topiaries, some props, and it’ll just be very fun and whimsical.” 

For instance, horticulturists will suggest the tea party vibe with plants and flowers that feature cup-shaped leaves, saucers of succulents, and soft pastels. Meanwhile, crimson-colored flowers allude to the Red Queen, the most dangerous croquet player on the page. 

Telling stories through flowers and plants has been a theme this year in the Sunken Garden, which kicked off this spring with a flower show inspired by the myth of Persephone, the Greek goddess of growth. But what’s also special about this show is that it was designed by a team of horticultural apprentices from RightTrack, the City of St. Paul’s career development program, which engages youth from cost-burdened households with part- and full-time employment opportunities around the city. While unpaid internships have long been part of the expected career path for aspiring horticulturists, the RightTrack program provides full- and part-time pay to high school youth and college students eligible for the program, removing economic barriers to participation, and cultivating a more diverse workforce.

Karlson, a senior at the University of Minnesota, has been part of the program for more than a year, taking advantage of opportunities to learn about everything from bonsai training to the operations of Como’s 30,000-square-foot growing range. “During the school year I’m juggling school and two other jobs, so being full-time at Como gave me the chance to really focus and make the most of this experience,” she says. “As a landscape architecture major, it’s really important to understand horticulture, too, and this has given me that chance. Having this kind of experience is incredibly useful on my resume.” 

Understanding the art and aesthetic behind Como’s elegant potted trees

With more than 100 potted trees—including one specimen that’s more than 450 years old—the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s bonsai collection is one of the best in the Midwest with a diverse range of species and styles. But one factor that really sets it apart from other collections may be Minnesota’s harsh winters. “I think our collection may be grown in the coldest climate of any botanical garden collection in the country,” says Reva Kos, the horticulturist who’s shaped the collection for two decades. “In California, you’ll see bonsai everywhere, but here it’s more challenging.”

But by spring, when the risk of frost subsides, Kos starts selecting the best trees in the collection for their big moment in the Mother’s Day Bonsai Show, slated for May 9 and 10. A long-standing Como tradition produced in partnership with members of the Minnesota Bonsai Society, the two-day exhibit features some of Como’s best specimens in the Ordway Gardens’ indoor display and outdoor vitrines, as well as favorites from private collections. As the state’s bonsai aficionados are putting the finishing touches on their most treasured trees, Como Friends asked Kos to share her tips and tricks for bonsai beginners.

Asian Roots: Bonsai has roots that go back to China in 700 AD where crafting elegant potted trees or pun-sai was only for the elite. By the 1200s, bonsai had become a mainstay of Japanese horticulture, spreading through Europe and the West by the late 19th century. As a result, every culture has a favored style, from the densely “helmeted” trees you might see in a European collection, to the airier American style influenced by California bonsai master John Yoshio Naka, who believed branches must “leave room for the birds to fly through.” No matter where they come from, Kos says, bonsai are typically planted in a soilless mixture of pumice, lava rock, and akadama, a granular clay-like material mined from the volcanic soil near Japan’s Mount Fuji. 

Pick the Right Plant: Almost any woody plant or shrub can be formed into a bonsai, but Kos urges beginners to make sure the plant you’re choosing will thrive in the conditions where it will live. “Bonsai are plants, so they generally do best outside, but there are some species that do very well indoors,” she says. “You want to try to mimic the temperature conditions that woody or herbaceous plants would need to grow outside, so if you’ve chosen a plant that requires a period of cold and dormancy to grow, try to create that at home.” If you’re planning to keep your bonsai indoors, tropical and subtropical plants like ficus and podocarpus are good choices for home growing. Ready for a faster start? This month, the Como Friends Gift Shop is featuring dozens of beginner bonsai for purchase. (Como Friends members enjoy 15 percent off every purchase!)

Find Design Inspiration: There are dozens of different bonsai styles, each with their own aesthetic goals. For instance, the forest-style bonsai (Yose-ue) features multiple plants in a staggered formation to create the sense of a deep forest in fine detail. Other styles of bonsai try to recreate the look of a wind-swept tree struggling to survive (Fukinagashi), an upright plant reaching straight for the sun (Chokkan), or the dip and flow of a cascading river (Kengai). Check out Instagram, Pinterest, and other sites for visual inspiration, as well as the many bonsai blogs that provide tips about training these potted trees over time.

Be Patient, Not Precious: As Como’s resident bonsai guru, Kos has the rare ability to see what a tree will look like in five or ten years, training individual trees for years at a time. While this kind of gardening takes great patience, she cautions against being overly precious with your plants. “Anyone can start a bonsai, but it’s harder to learn if you’re afraid to touch it. I really enjoy pruning, so you just have to have the confidence to trim and prune in the way you want it to grow,” she says. “Take your time, because if you’re in a hurry, you can kill your tree if you try to do everything at once. But don’t be afraid to experiment because that’s how you learn the most. When you make mistakes, that’s how you become better.”

Grow Your Community: Once your bonsai hobby takes root, consider joining the Minnesota Bonsai Society, an all-volunteer group whose members have a long history of support for the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s public collection of bonsai. “We have a mutually beneficial exchange, where they help provide volunteers who help us with our collection, while we help generate public interest in bonsai,” Kos says. “The Minnesota Bonsai Society is a great resource and their members are very helpful and excited to share their knowledge.”

Enjoy a sneak peek at part two of Como’s Spring Flower Show, now through June 7

Following the elegant and literary Persephone show, the Sunken Garden has undergone yet another transformation this season for part two of the Spring Flower Show now through June 7. Designed by Como horticulturist Bo Akinkuotu, the display features rich colors in high contrast, and a host of unusual flowers.

“At this point on the calendar, we can safely say we’re in spring,” Akinkuotu says. “So a lot of the plants you’ll see here are not frost tolerant—they’re late spring flowers that feel like we’re getting a little jump on the season.”

Peachy orange blooms like Asiatic lily ‘Lava Joy’, calla lily ‘Havana’, hibiscus ‘Orange Sunset’, and peach-colored begonias were chosen to contrast with deep blue verbena, lobelia, and fragrant heliotrope. Visitors will also notice a few scene-stealers mixed in with more traditional choices. 

“One flower visitors may not have seen before is calceolaria, sometimes called the pocketbook plant, which has these pouch-shaped flowers,” he says. Another is the gladiator allium, a special ornamental onion that reaches heights of five feet, with round purple flower heads that resemble a plant from Dr. Seuss. 

With pollinator-friendly plantings and more sustainable landscape practices, horticulturists at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory are role-modeling the ways you can invite more wildlife into your own backyard

Last fall, as the growing season came to a close, horticulturist Robin Takahashi made a point of keeping the Skipper Garden between Como Zoo’s bird yard and the orangutan habitat in a careful state of decay. Rather than raking up leaves and cutting dead foliage, she kept plant skeletons in place over the winter in hopes of creating an inviting home for the Dakota skipper (Hesperia dacotae), a critically endangered butterfly that was once native to Minnesota’s tall grass prairies. 

“Skipper butterflies, when they’re caterpillars, will wrap themselves up in a blade of grass and nibble on it, so you might never know they’re there,” she says. “Cutting back ornamental grasses in the fall can wipe out their habitat, so instead, I leave about 6 inches of grass into the spring.”

Skipper Butterfly photo taken by Volunteer for the Minnesota DNR

Encouraging Como visitors to invite more pollinators into their own backyards and landscapes is part of the mission of this year’s Party for the Planet, Como’s weekend-long Earth Day celebration powered by Xcel Energy, scheduled for April 25–26. But it’s also become a growing part of the design plan for the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s outdoor gardens. In recent years, Como’s been making a quiet but critical evolution toward more sustainable practices—both to attract the birds, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators that signal a healthy ecosystem, and to mitigate the present and future effects of climate change.

“Plants can get stressed out by the changes in climate that are really abrupt and dramatic,” explains Como’s Bryn Fleming, the horticultural supervisor who oversees all of the Conservatory’s exterior gardens. “For instance, as we’ve seen more really heavy rain in June over the last couple of seasons, a lot of home gardeners may be noticing that their lilacs are getting really cranky, and are more susceptible to a fungal disease that’s more prevalent when things are super wet and warm.” 

As Como horticulturists encounter these trends, they’re taking a close look at the care, feeding, and cultivation of every corner of Como’s 18-acre campus to ensure the flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees they install this season can be sustained for the long term. “It’s a process that every gardener should probably be doing right now,” Fleming says, “starting with the question, how much time do you actually have? How much water do you want to use, and how often? Are you planting something that’s prone to disease, and will you have to use chemicals to keep it looking great? In a way, it’s about being more realistic about what will last, and rethinking some of our choices as we go forward.”

That approach is well underway in the Minnesota Garden that greets visitors at Como’s front door. Originally installed a decade ago with native and adaptive plants, horticulturist Marie Day has been leading the garden’s evolution toward exclusively native plants, which have the advantage of requiring less water, and being more drought tolerant. 

The Enchanted Garden, opposite the Conservatory’s historic entrance, is also undergoing a shift. “In the past there has been a heavy reliance on traditional annual bedding plants, which require heavy amounts of weekly watering,” says assistant gardener Jake Frechette. “Now we are highlighting the power of perennials and self-sown annuals, and we also leave this garden standing over the winter, as the spent stems and leaves provide cover and the seedheads provide food over winter for the critters.”

Frechette has also been reimagining the steep slope around Como’s Frog Pond as an ornamental meadow, adding clover, wildflowers, and spring bulbs to a hard-to-mow section of traditional turf, while creating more inviting viewing spaces where visitors can spread a blanket. “It’s a great example of how you can turn your turf into a multispecies collection or garden,” says Fleming. “A lot of people are interested in moving away from grass in their lawns toward plants that can harbor more birds and insects, but it can be hard to envision. This is a great way of showing visitors what grass looks like when you don’t cut it and start incorporating other species.” 

All around Como Park Zoo & Conservatory, visitors may also notice new plantings of parsley, cilantro, dill, and fennel—ideal host plants for supporting black swallowtail caterpillars. “We are treating it as a little experiment, to see which herbs the local butterfly population prefers,” says horticulturist Rylee Werden. “While it’s more commonly known that adult butterflies need flowers for nectar to eat, those same insects need host plant foliage to eat, so planting extra herbs this year is a great way to support butterfly habitat throughout the season, and through their whole life cycle. It might help make gardeners less upset when a caterpillar is chomping their garden to know it will turn into a beautiful butterfly.”

Every Wednesday morning, Como volunteer Paul Storch arrives hours before Como’s public opening, drains the water from the pool at the center of the Palm Dome, collects the coins visitors have tossed in through the week, and contemplates “Crest of the Wave,” the beaux arts bronze created by sculptor Harriet Frishmuth. 

While the sculpture, famously modeled more than a century ago by the dancer Desha Delteil, has been delighting Como visitors for decades, Storch takes a more critical view. A retired museum conservator, he dusts and details the iconic artwork, while studying how the statue’s wax coating is standing up to the elements, noting where minerals and moisture might be building up. From there, he’ll go on to clean and polish the bronze plaques and brass kickplates all around the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, one of the most beloved buildings on Minnesota’s roster of sites on the National Register of Historic Places.

Taking care of Como’s treasures is a team effort that requires the collaboration of Como’s maintenance staff, horticulturists, community volunteers, and outside contractors. Earlier this winter, all of those forces came together to tend to Como’s two most iconic sculptures, “Crest of the Wave” in the Palm Dome, and “Play Days” in the Sunken Garden. 

1). When decades of wear and tear split the copper tubes feeding water to the bubbling frogs on “Play Days,” Como entrusted their replacement to KCI Conservation, a Minneapolis-based art conservation firm. Following a short stay in the studio of conservators Laura Kubick and Kristin Cheronis, the statue was returned to the Sunken Garden for a coordinated treatment and training session about caring for the fountain bronzes.  

2). Como horticulturist Bryn Fleming helps give the statue a full cleaning, removing accumulated grime and buildup on the metal. During the process, older wax is stripped from the statue to allow conservators to reapply a new protective layer. 

3). Using a propane torch, conservators gently heat the bronze surface and apply a thin coat of hot wax. Once it dries, the surface is buffed for a second coat of cold wax. This layered wax system can protect the statue from moisture and other irritants for a year or longer.

The goddess of spring is the spark behind the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s latest flower show

The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s new horticultural curator, Ray Watson, takes a storytelling approach to plants, and for this season’s spring flower show, they’re finding inspiration in an ancient tale of love, loss, and renewal—the Greek goddess Persephone. Maiden of flowers, queen of the underworld, and goddess of new growth, Persephone’s story is so strongly rooted to the rebirth of spring that Watson couldn’t resist using this Greek myth as the creative spark for their first seasonal flower show in the Sunken Garden. 

Bringing a sustainability-driven and artistic lens to the exhibition, Horticulturist Rylee Werden and Horticulture Curator Ray Watson contribute a vision that pairs environmentally conscious practices with expressive planting design, and flower choices. Their work highlights innovative uses of seasonal materials, thoughtful resource stewardship, and immersive compositions that reframe the Sunken Garden as both a literary story and a living work of art.

“When you’re designing for this room, having a theme is an interesting creative challenge that forces us to work within the constraints of the story we’re trying to tell, and to narrow the plant options in a way that allows [visitors the chance] to really focus on some new and possibly unexpected choices,” Watson says. The show is the first in what will be a full year of seasonal flower shows all organized around the idea of the “Magic of Como,” from a fantastical  Alice in Wonderland–inspired summer flower show, to a mystical witch’s garden planned for autumn. “I prefer art to have a narrative that explains what the creator wanted to show and tell, and with stories like these, there are so many aspects we can illustrate through our flower selection.” 

Here’s how some of the flowers and features you’ll see in the spring show are connected to Persephone’s ageless story, told from Homer’s time to Hadestown. 

The first half of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s Spring Flower Show runs from March 20 through April 26, and is free to every visitor thanks to your contributions to Como Friends. Thank you!

Show you care this Valentine’s season with a very special delivery for the animal lovers in your life! Get your animal sponsorship sweetheart deal on this adorable trio of sloth, flamingo, or polar bear mini-plush—plus a Valentine’s card and gluten-free candy—for only $25. A great gift for nature lovers of all ages, sweeten the deal with two for just $45, or three for $65.

To get your last-minute Valentine’s minis, please visit the Como Friends Gift Shop at Como Park Zoo & Conservatory!

This season’s Winter Flower Show brings color and light into Minnesota’s most beautiful room

When Como Park Zoo & Conservatory posted a preview of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s new Winter Flower Show on social media, designer Isaac Zaman braced himself for a possible backlash: His first-ever flower show design coincided with the Conservatory’s plans to remove the Italian cypress that have long stood at the far end of the Sunken Garden.

“One of the issues we’ve always had with the Sunken Garden is that it’s not bright enough for many plants, and changing the room structurally actually lets in more light,” he says. “But we know people can get very attached to the way things have always been, so we were kind of nervous about what people would say. About half of the people who commented were like, ‘Why would you do that when they’ve been there forever?’, and the other half were like, ‘Oh, interesting…can’t wait to see what comes next.’”

The current Winter Flower Show, now on display through March 15, features a mix of old favorites and new featured plants, with a cool palette of South African veltheimia bulbs, lavender azaleas, pink and white camellias, tropical hibiscus, and more. “I wanted to pay homage to some of the history that’s happened in the room by bringing in some of our accent plants, jasmine topiaries and some lemon cypress. But I also wanted to move the room in a new direction where our interests can always be changing,” Zaman says.

One of the less familiar flowers visitors may notice are Love-in-a-Mist, Nigella damascena.

 “They’re a wonderful aromatic crop that also has these really funky flowers that look quite alien, and if they manage to go off and bloom in the room it’s going to be something very new,” he says. Visitors may also notice the brighter feel of the room, and vignette arrangements that invite viewers to take in the room at different elevations.

“My goal is to bring it all closer to the people, and to add vertical elements to the lower parts of the room that makes you appreciate the size of the space, and the light,” he says.