McCrory Gardens
Twenty-five acres of formal gardens and a forty-five-acre arboretum turn South Dakota State University’s cold, wind, heat, and plant breeding into visible horticultural evidence.
Artwork inspired by Grace French
McCrory Gardens is both display and field test. Formal collections range from prairie, medicinal, sensory, butterfly, iris, peony, rose, and trial gardens to sheltering conifers and woody plants; beyond them, the South Dakota State Arboretum adds roughly 1.6 miles of trails through tree and shrub collections.
Choose one climatic question—winter injury, wind exposure, drought response, pollinator use, or autumn structure—and compare unrelated plants against it. Labels and mature form make the results useful to northern Plains gardeners. The ticketed formal garden and free dawn-to-dusk arboretum have different access patterns, so decide which landscape answers the day’s question.
- Formal garden
- Twenty-five acres
- Arboretum
- Forty-five acres and about 1.6 trail miles
- Regional value
- Plant performance under northern Plains conditions
Quick guide
- Choose a test
- Compare winter, wind, drought, or pollinator response
- Choose the landscape
- Ticketed formal gardens or free arboretum trails
Use Brookings weather as the comparison tool
- Set one climate question
- Begin in a labeled formal collection and compare several plants for wind exposure, leaf condition, winter damage, water demand, or pollinator activity. Record the label with the whole plant.
- Cross collection boundaries
- Carry the same question from a prairie or trial bed into roses, peonies, conifers, or medicinal plants. Unrelated species reveal different solutions to the same Brookings conditions.
- Add the arboretum scale
- Walk part of the 1.6-mile arboretum trail to compare young display beds with mature woody structure. The forty-five-acre arboretum is free and open dawn to dusk.
- Respect the two access systems
- Use formal-garden admission hours for its twenty-five acres; seasonal closing and last-entry times are firm. Stay on paths and grass, and keep pets outside formal areas except service animals.
Good to know
McCrory combines a ticketed 25-acre formal garden with a free 45-acre arboretum. University breaks and maintenance add occasional closures, so check the dated calendar. Use 631 22nd Avenue as the stable arrival point.
Notice these
- Twenty-five-acre formal garden
- Forty-five-acre South Dakota State Arboretum
- Northern Plains plant performance