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"Secret" Gardens: Nurturing Natural Beauty in the City

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Secret gardens, you say? Is trespassing involved? The gardens we fell upon for this special feature aren't quite that secret. They're in the public domain— we're not sending you over fences and past guard dogs to uncover them. So yes, you may well have seen or heard of them before. Thus, our aim is partly to compile and partly to jog memory. Some of our gardens are in parks and one is atop a roof. As for the scores of community gardens out there, we chose a few that were more physically open and available to passerby, exceptionally attractive, or in unlikely locations. We also made an effort to pick a constellation of spots that fan out across the length of the city. Our list is in no way exhaustive, so, if you've a garden in mind, drop it in the tipline and we'll see about adding it to the map. We looked for Mary everywhere, finally nabbing her at the Rogers Park Metra Gardens, crouched in the high grass. But alas, she slipped off into the underbrush.

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Indian Boundary Park Gardens & Lagoon

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Hermitage Triangle Garden

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City Hall Rooftop Garden

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Osaka Garden

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Growing Station Comm. Garden

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Drake Garden

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Arcade Park Garden

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Rogers Park Metra Gardens

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Thomas St. Comm. Garden

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Merrick Rose Garden

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University of Chicago Gardens

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