This garden is a centerpiece of Cornell Botanic Gardens' native plant education program and is known for its exceptional diversity of early spring blooming wildflowers such as skunk cabbage, trout lily, marsh marigold, and trillium that take advantage of the sunlight and warmth provided by the still-bare tree canopy. It is also an excellent spot for birding.

Printable Map

Outdoor Field Guide

To guide your plant discovery, there are over 200 plant labels throughout the garden and photos with up-to-date lists of the season's flowering plants near the garden entrance. Tour the garden with your cell phone using the "Pocketsights Tour Guide" app.

Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play

Garden with Native Plants

Draw inspiration for using native plants in your gardens from formal plantings at the two entrance pathways. Learn how to grow native plants from seed from a presentation created by Krissy Boys, staff horticulturist.

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Education in the Garden

The Mundy Wildflower Garden is also an excellent location for school field trips, research, and field-based courses, where it provides a first-class outdoor classroom. As a partner in the Kids Discover the Trail Program, the Cornell Botanic Gardens' Wildflower Explorations Program instructs every Ithaca 3rd grade student about plant reproduction, adaptation, and wildflower identification, while fostering a better appreciation of our natural world.

About this Program

Sustainability in the Wildflower Garden

Habitat Restoration in the Mundy Wildflower Garden

A lot of effort has been devoted to restoring areas overrun with invasive plant species

Natural Area

Native Lawn Demonstration Area

Designed to replace conventional lawn with native low-growing grasses, which only require mowing once or twice per year.

Managing Deer

Six of the garden’s twenty-five acres are enclosed by a deer fence, to keep out the overabundant white-tailed deer population.

Mundy Wildflower Garden Trails

A web of trails wind through this rich floodplain forest. Find trail routes on the mobile-friendly website ithacatrails.org.

View Trails

More about Mundy Wildflower Garden

Explore Spring Wildflowers

Get to know the wide variety of early spring wildflowers you can see in the Mundy Wildflower Garden and woodlands throughout our natural areas.

Natural Area

The Wonder of Native Pollinator Plants

View this short video with Krissy Boys, native plant specialist, to learn about beautiful native plants and how they nurture pollinator insects and wildlife.

Natural Heritage of the Mundy Wildflower Garden

More about the plant communities and geology.

Find more to explore! Check out our interactive map.

Explore Map