Nicholas Conservatory and Gardens

This is a lovely place to go for a couple of hours. The indoor space is not large and only takes about 30 – 45 minutes to walk through, but there is a lot to see in that space. It is well laid out and tended to. The outdoor space is beautiful with the pool and area to walk around. There is even additional areas with a rose garden and other spaces as well. You don’t have to pay to see the outdoor space but if you have the time, I would do the indoor as well, it is very lovely.

We showed up right before it closed but we still paid and went inside to explore.
We really loved it!
It’s small but beautifully done.
We got lucky because there was almost no one inside so we had free roam of the place to take pictures.
It was early spring so the gardens outside weren’t blooming but that’s ok, we still enjoyed it. We took a small walk along the bath near the river afterwards and that was fun as well
If your in the area, make sure to visit it

Not much to do, except when an event is going on but beautiful! They do have a bunch of adult and kid events with lots of make and take crafts. They do weddings but disappointed the inside room doesn’t hold many people and has huge murals that can’t be covered. We went for breakfast with Santa and my son had a blast! We use the bike path outside often, can’t wait for spring to come again!

It’s no Jens Jensen, but it is a beautiful conservatory with really enjoyable water features. Among the exhibits is a kaleidoscopic plant viewer which I found interesting. As others have mentioned, the price of admission is a bit steep for what it is – especially for a non-​resident. I suppose that might explain why I was the only one in there. For comparison, last summer I went to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis which was the same price and I spent nearly the entire afternoon wandering around there. I was a bit conflicted on rating this place. I did enjoy my visit, but the high admission for such a small attraction left a bit of a sour taste.

This small conservatory features lots of orchids plus a small butterfly tent from late March to mid May. It’s an interesting little place but I think the $ 8 admission is a bit steep for what it has to offer. $ 3 would be more reasonable.
Perhaps coming from Chicago where the huge Garfield Park Conservatory offers free admission with a suggested donation is why I didn’t find this conservatory all that impressive. There really ought to be more flowers inside to make up for the lack of space.
Plus the butterfly tent was severely lacking in diversity. All we saw was Monarchs and Painted Ladys with maybe one or two Buckeyes and Gulf Fritillarys. And no one was monitoring people to prevent them from stepping on the butterflies.
It was a disappointment that I do not plan to repeat which is unfortunate because the building and surrounding grounds are done so nicely. However, there isn’t much within the conservatory itself to justify more than a half hour visit.
Visited: April 13, 2014

It was a beautiful Conservatory. If you are looking for something to do for a hour or two stop in. Take some pictures. Enjoy the orchids and Glass men.

This place is gorgeous.
We were in the area driving around, and looked on Unilocal for things to do near by. This popped up and we decided to check it out.
It is so pretty, and relaxing… GREAT find that we werent expecting!
I think the price of entry would be a little more fair at $ 5, instead of $ 8 but regardless, we enjoyed it!

I highly recommend if you enjoy natural surroundings and tropical plants in a pleasant setting. One member of the staff gave my wife and I an impromptu guided tour. Be sure to check out the kaleidoscope, which is aimed at several colorful flowering plants.

To rebut the comment about the cost to get in, a large portion of the renovations were paid for by donations. To help keep the large cost of maintenance from being a burden to taxpayers, visitors, including people who don’t live in the community and pay taxes to Rockford, are asked to pay to enter. The price is similar to what you would pay to go to the Chicago Botanic Gardens or Anderson Japanese Gardens. I encourage people to visit and enjoy the beauty. It is family friendly and beautiful.

this is part of the Rockford park dist witch is funded by tax payers money OK now let me get to the point we went there after they renovated it mind ya it used to be free to go walk through there and look at all the different plants and such before they tore it down and rebuild it and now there is a cover charge of 6 dollars and up now remember we taxpayers fund this every year o i forgot to say we just walked away without even going in after reading there is a cover charge to get in