Annual Festivals

Booms & Blooms

Celebrate our nation’s independence with fireworks, food and family fun.

Festival of Butterflies

Step into the magical world of butterflies and enjoy opportunities to learn more about Lepidoptera!

Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass

Follow us down the rabbit hole during this themed fall festival!

Festival of Lights

Join us for this unique holiday display and see the Gardens in "A Whole New light"!

Explore The Gardens

PHOTO STREAM – #POWELLGARDENS

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Come celebrate fall during the FINAL weekend of our Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20! Enjoy an artistic display of autumn favorites illustrating Alice's trip down the rabbit hole! Enjoy additional activities on October 19, with our Family Frolic: Mad Scientist and bring your furry pal on Sunday, October 20, for Dog's Day Out. It's going to be a great weekend with a little something for everyone. Festival admission gets you access to all the fun! Tickets: powellgardens.org/fall

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Our dormouse is inviting you to join the tea party and enjoy the FINAL weekend of our Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20! Enjoy an artistic display of autumn favorites illustrating Alice's trip down the rabbit hole! Enjoy additional activities on October 19, with our Family Frolic: Mad Scientist and bring your furry pal on Sunday, October 20, for Dog's Day Out. It's going to be a great weekend with a little something for everyone. Festival admission gets you access to all the fun! Tickets: powellgardens.org/fall

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It may be past prime bloom time but Compass Plant (Silphium laciniatum) is still a sight to see in our Meadow! During the season this prairie staple can reach mature heights of 6-12' and offers yellow, daisy-like flowers. The common name derives from the belief by pioneers that the leaves of Compass Plant pointed in a north-south direction which is true more often than not. It often co-occurs with Andropogon gerardii (Big Bluestem).

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Be sure you join the Tweedles for the FINAL weekend of our Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20! Enjoy an artistic display of autumn favorites illustrating Alice's trip down the rabbit hole! Enjoy additional activities on October 19, with our Family Frolic: Mad Scientist and bring your furry pal on Sunday, October 20, for Dog's Day Out. It's going to be a great weekend with a little something for everyone. Festival admission gets you access to all the fun! Tickets: powellgardens.org/fall

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Join us for the final weekend of the Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass installation (open daily through October 20). This weekend enjoy additional activities with our Family Frolic: Mad Scientist, October 19, 1 p.m.-4 p.m. (Entry included with Fall Fling admission) and
get in the Halloween spirit! Arrive in costume and embark on a spooky (but kid-friendly) journey through our gardens for an experience filled with explosions, potions, and eerie creatures. Kids will enjoy free garden-themed Halloween treats, a performance by Mad Science, and our mad scientist costume contest. Festival tickets and details: powellgardens.org/fallfling

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The Fall Fling is in full swing and we are upping our game this weekend by adding an October Beer Garden (beer garden admission is included with the festival)! Join us for the Fall Fling- Beer Garden from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. October 12 & 13. Hang with 'In Full Swing' from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct 12 & 13 and enjoy a little bit of everything from the 30's, 40's and 50's to jazz, swing and Broadway. The Alpen Spielers will break out traditional polka music from 2-4 p.m. on October 12 and in additiona to walking the Wonderland fall display visitors can play croquet with flamingos, take on the challenge of chess and throw a game of corn hole! Beer, wine and themed cocktails available for purchase while you take a break from your journey Through the Looking Glass.Fall Fling tickets and details: powellgardens.org/fallfling

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The Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass is in its final two weeks! Visit the Gardens soon for a chance to hop down the rabbit hole and into the topsy-turvy world of Wonderland! Enjoy fall botanical displays highlighting moments from Alice' s adventures. Join us daily through October 21. Details at powellgardens.org/fallfling

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Fall Fling: Through the Looking is open daily through October 20! Enjoy a walk through fall display featuring moments from Lewis Carroll's classics, 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass'. Details at powellgardens.org/fallfling

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The tea is ready and the Wonderland gang is anxiously awaiting your arrival! Our Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass festival is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20. Enjoy a story walk through the Gardens highlighting the adventures of Alice! Visit powellgardens.org for details and tickets.

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Pick a card, any card! Just don't make enemies of the Red Queen's Card Guards during our Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass now open. Thanks to David Breedlove, Designer, Garden Installations & Special Events (and mastermind behind this fantastic display) for this great pic! The festival is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20! Visit powellgardens.org for details.

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It's fall and we are excited about it! Thanks to our Lead Horticulturist of Core Gardens, Travis Freeman, for this great pic capturing all things autumn. Join us daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20 for the Fall Fling: Through and hop down the rabbit hole towards adventure. Walk a paved path through the Gardens with special moments along the route highlighting Lewis Carroll's classics, 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass'. The festival is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20. Visit powellgardens.org/fall for details and tickets!

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Don't be late! Our Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass is open and ready for visitors. Enjoy a story walk through the Gardens, highlighting scenes from Lewis Carroll's, 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass'. The festival is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20! Visit powellgardens.org for details.

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Thanks to Brent Tucker our Horticulturist of Seasonal Design and Events for this great early-morning shot of gomphrena in our Visitor Center Terrace beds. The fall blooms are bursting with color around here and our Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20. There are plenty of reasons to visit! powellgardens.org

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This Gourd-geous Hookah-smoking caterpillar is a fan-favorite from Lewis Carroll's book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and he is currently resting atop a mushroom on our Magnolia Walk as part of thefantastic display for Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass which opens today, September 21! Join us from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily through October 20, to see all your favorite Wonderland characters and scenes created by more than 800 pumpkins and other fall botanical favorites. Visit powellgardens.org for details.

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The Red Queen has been installed in her garden and we are nearly ready for the kick-off of Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass! The Queen's full locks were created with cascading mums which were trained (in our greenhouses) to grow down by weighting the ends of their stems. Pretty cool! You can come say "hi" to the Queen and your other favorite characters from Wonderland from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, September 21 through October 20. Visit powellgardens.org for more details.

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Familiar faces are beginning to pop up around here! Join us for the Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass which opens Saturday, September 21! Join us and meet many of the colorful characters from Alice's adventures in Wonderland including the White Rabbit, Mad Hatter, Red Queen, and the Cheshire Cat! The festival is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20 with special activations throughout. Visit powellgardens.org for additional activations.

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It's crunch time for our Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass display which opens Saturday, September 21! Thanks to @colonial_gardens for keeping us in enough pumpkins to tell the story of Alice's adventures in the topsy-turvy world of Wonderland. Join us daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October 20 to explore our story walk. Visit powellgardens.org for additional activations.

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The opening of our NEW Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass is right around the corner! Enjoy an artistic display of nearly 800 pumpkins and other fall botanical favorites installed on a story walk in the Gardens and highlighting Alice's adventures in Wonderland. Visitors can join the Mad Hatter for a Tea Party, or visit the Red Queen's Garden (but don't touch the roses). All the fun starts September 21 and runs daily (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) through October 20. powellgardens.org for details.

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Starting off Friday the 13th with a creepy, crawly (but beautiful) friend and his morning meal. It is going to be a beautiful day and a sun shiny weekend to visit. Mark your calendars for our Fall Fling: Through the Looking Glass, which opens Saturday, September 21! Enjoy an artistic display of nearly 800 pumpkins and other fall botanical favorites highlighting Alice's adventures in Wonderland. We are open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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Our buddies are back! @goatsonthego are here for their second round of Sericea lespedeza destruction. Sericea is classified as an invasive species by @moconservation and is native to Asia. It was originally introduced (last century) into the Missouri landscape as a foraging crop for livestock. Guess what! Goats love to eat it! They nibble the sericea down to nubs (not allowing it to disperse seeds) and the goat's departure will be followed by a fall burn to complete the one-two punch. Three cheers for prairie management!

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Romance is in the air as we foray into fall wedding season! Here we see centerpieces displayed for a recent reception in our Grand Hall. We have a variety of settings (a vineyard, Chapel, rustic Missouri Barn) for the exchange of vows and are booking in 2019 for the holidays and into 2020! Visit powellgardens.org/planyourevent

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Cirsium in our prairie. While some may view the common pasture thistle as an unwanted weed, they are an important part of our prairie ecosystem. Native thistles provide sustenance for bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds and Goldfinches readily eat the seeds.

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The Marlese Lowe Gourley Island Garden is boasting some great fall color right now as you can see in this image captured by Lead Horticulturist of the Core Gardens, Travis Freeman! Here we see Colchicum autumnale, commonly called autumn crocus or meadow saffron and Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, commonly called plumbago or leadwort, located next to an observation deck overlooking the Garden's tiered pools. Leadwort is a wiry, mat-forming perennial which spreads by rhizomes to form an attractive ground cover. The fall flowers of the autumn crocus have no foliage which leads to the occasional use of the common name naked ladies. Just a couple of fun facts. Come see them for yourself, we are open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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The David T. Beals Woodland & Stream Garden is the place to be this weekend. Calming streams, cooling shade, and Chelone oblique, or rose turtlehead, seen here. The snapdragon-like flowers (each to 1.5” long) can range in color from red to pink to deep rose bloom in late summer and into autumn (late July – September). Each flower has a sparse a yellow beard inside the lower lip. The Genus name comes from the Greek word chelone meaning tortoise in reference to the turtlehead shape of the flowers. We are open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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Be sure to stop and enjoy the late-summer blooms of Impatiens capensis, commonly called jewelweed, when you visit us this weekend. Typically occurring in low woodlands and thickets, along stream banks and in swampy areas throughout the State of Missouri, these beauties feature cornucopia-shaped, orange flowers with reddish-brown spotting. This particular specimen can be found near the bridge to our Marlese Lowe Gourley Island Garden. Native Americans used the juices from this plant to relieve itching associated with poison ivy, stinging nettle, and insect bites. Dew or rain beads up on the leaves forming sparkling droplets which give rise to the common name of jewelweed. We are open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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It's the African horned melon called Kiwano! This strange-looking fruit is edible but these guys aren't quite ready for harvesting. A fully ripened kiwano has an orange rind with prominent spikes. If you are interested in antioxidants the kiwano melon has vitamin C, vitamin A, zinc, and lutein, which together play a role in reducing inflammation and preventing chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer. Hooray for plants! You can find these in our Heartland Harvest Garden daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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Gomphrena adds a sea of purple color to the Children's Education Garden. This adorable little clover doppelganger offers a marathon bloom time from early-summer until the first hard frost. With a shorter habit, these plants are frequently seen as a front border in beds and are a durable cut flower. Come immerse yourself in a rainbow of happy! We have new fall hours. Join us daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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Carica papaya, commonly called papaya, from the ground up in our Heartland Harvest Garden. The papaya is a frost-tender, succulent, broadleaf evergreen tree that bears fruits throughout the year. Tropical trees in this area of the Gardens are removed at the end of each season and overwintered in our greenhouses to save them from Missouri's cold winter temps. You can see this guy daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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Our Potager Menu Garden is a must-see when you swing by this Labor Day weekend! Here we see some vibrant Flamingo cockscomb (Celosia spicata) also known as celosia ‘flamingo feather’. These beautiful accent plants can be dried and make a great cut flower. Grown as an annual in Missouri, the common names include Wheatstraw Celosia or Wheat Celosia. We are open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (even Labor Day) and it is the final few days for Active-duty military to take advantage of the Blue Star Museum program free admission.

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Helianthus (common sunflower) with the iconic Marjorie Powell Allen Chapel in the background. These annual favorites have seeded themselves in our prairie and Chapel landscape and definitely deserve a look when you visit this Labor Day weekend! The genus Helianthus is comprised of about 70 species some common and some at risk of extinction. Sunflowers are native to North America and Central America and are the recognized state flower of Kansas! We wre open daily this weekend from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (even Labor Day). See you soon!