A functional landscape collection displays plants suitable for particular conditions and uses. Examples include plants that grow under shady woodland conditions, plants exhibiting fruit, fragrance, bark, or foliage effects, or plants blooming at a certain time of the year. Such displays are educational for home gardeners as well as landscape professionals.

Washington Park Arboretum has three good examples of functional landscape displays.

The most spectacular of the functional landscape displays is the Winter Garden with its variety of fragrant flowers, colorful foliage, showy fruit, and striking twigs and bark. The most interesting time of the year is of course winter--December through March--but there is plenty of year-round beauty to make return visits throughout the year.



Rhododendron Glen features rhododendrons blooming from February through June along with companion plants that thrive under similar conditions.

The Woodland Garden is a significant landscape feature, with two ponds connected by a stream in a broad ravine nestled between the Winter Garden and Loderi Valley. The highlight of the Woodland Garden is the Japanese maple collection which is the largest collection of Acer palmatum of any public garden in the country. Complementing the maples is the native overstory and a range of small trees and shrubs appropriate for the woodland setting, including Cornus kousa, Lindera obtusiloba and Kalmia latifolia.