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.
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.
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.
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, our Wildflower Explorations Program instructs every Ithaca 3rd grade student about plant reproduction, adaptation, and identification.
Sustainability in the Wildflower Garden
A lot of effort has been devoted to restoring areas overrun with invasive plant species
Natural Area
Native Lawn Demonstration AreaDesigned to replace conventional lawn with native low-growing grasses, which only require mowing once or twice per year.
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.
More About Mundy Wildflower Garden
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 PlantsView this short video with Krissy Boys, native plant specialist, to learn about beautiful native plants and how they nurture pollinator insects and wildlife.
More about the plant communities and geology.