Allen Centennial Gardens Reviews

Beautiful and free! What's not to love? Only downside is it's smaller than I anticipated

This is a hidden gem on the UW campus. It s a beautiful place to take a walk, sit on a bench, and relax. The flowers are stunning in spring, summer and fall. Entrance is free, but donations help maintain the beautiful landscape. I would definitely recommend for a cute date spot!

Beautiful Garden. Kids got some pictures taken here.

Small garden. They have a lot packed into the tiny space though. It's a nice place to get away while still being in the middle of campus.

Pretty setting for a wedding but the event staff are not helpful. I stopped taking them seriously when they said they have never received negative feedback. Save yourself the hassle, hold your ceremony somewhere else and just stop in for pictures.

Beautiful gardens well-maintained and a great place to rest and reset your soul

Cool stop for a relaxing walk in nature while on campus.

Free outdoor gardens on UW Madison campus. Pond with Koi fish. Nice variety of plants.

Beautiful Garden. Kids got some pictures taken here.

Beautiful garden. Wonderful atmosphere. A great place to enjoy a wide variety of plant species, and an ideal place to relax within the hustle and bustle of campus.

Small but beautiful garden with many interesting varieties. Quiet, with a beautiful koi pond and places to sit.

Great garden space to take a stroll through, sit and relax or study, or learn about different plants. The Allen Centennial Garden often hosts events (free or paid) of which Plant Adoption Day is the best, in my opinion (though the line can get unbelievably long).

Beautiful gardens, beautiful music, beautiful night!

It was very pleasant. It was larger than I imagined and felt like being in the backyard of a mansion.

Very beautiful! I am not a big flower/plant person, but I can certainly appreciate beauty.

Worth going to check out and walk through. Especially in the Summer.

The nearest garden by my dorm (Turner hall, Kronshage drive) I love this place. I am usually going there when I have time. there have special events frequency that might make your day.

Beautiful gardens that are on par with Olbrich. Great place to find and walk through if you're on campus or walking on lakeshore path

It's beautiful and has so many photo opportunities! Great for Prom, Homecoming or wedding photos!

Great UW-Madison landmark showcasing beauty and quiet.

Very pretty and peaceful, probably should have gone earlier in the year

This is a beautiful mini Botanic garden on the University of Wisconsin campus.

Poke stops, Beautiful plants, and colorful real fish in the pond! I love taking my 4 yr old here and playing pokemon with friends! It's also a hot spot for ex raid passes...I enjoy this gated hidden gem!

Celebrating 30 years June 2019, stunning gardens! Multiple styles in one setting to include container, rock, woodland, English - crazy variety of hostas along with a Koi pond, lovely shade trees and various spots to sit and enjoy.

Absolutely love a stroll through this lovely location!

Beautiful, breathtaking garden. Small and easy to enjoy the splendor. We enjoyed a concert there, and among the sent of lush flowers.

Beautiful place for a walk. Lots of flowers blooming all the time. Would reccomend

Wonderful floral displays in a quiet setting on campus.

This is a small (2 acre?) garden which has a spectacular selection of Asiatic Lilies. Happily many of these were in bloom when we visited at the start of July. The school of Koi was very impressive.

The good parts of the garden were very good, but it was let down by some areas (and the lack of labelling on plants I was interested in!). Well worth a visit if you are in the area. You also get to see how *big* UW-Madison is.

Nice place to enjoy the flowers. There are many activities here, including some free wellness like perfume making.

A good place to take photos of 15 years and weddings

Absolutely beautiful! So glad we ran across this gem.

A stunning respite of natural space tucked among the lakeshore buildings of the UW-Madison campus. It's easy to access and I highly recommend the stop.

Lovely setting and a great variety of plants. Interesting trees, shrubs, and perennials that do well in our climate zone. The garden has many varied hardscape and climate example plantings. The paths are well maintained and very aesthetically pleasing.
Please take the garden for what it is and ignore the "wedding" people's reviews.

I never expected such a wonderful garden to exist on campus. It has one of the best collections (and well displayed collections) of alpine plants in its alpine rock garden that I've seen outside of Scandinavia. It's a perfect sanctuary in the middle of campus and I just can't get over the quality of the garden. While it's very small, it has much to offer and is always worth a walk around.

Beautiful place with an old historic looking house on the property. Beautiful koi in the pond with water and rock features all throughout the property. That may cost money to enter and view/ rent possibly?

Really neat little garden and now they have wifi on the terrace so it can be an outdoor office.

It's beautiful and has so many photo opportunities! Great for Prom, Homecoming or wedding photos!

It is beautiful and calm with lush shades of green, pops of colored flowers, and a mesmerizing koi pond.

I attended a work wellness event at the Allen Centennial Gardens. What a fantastic resource on the UW-Madison campus that is free to everyone who wants to learn more about this garden and plants in general. I have been to this cute garden a hand full of times in the past, but have never taken a formal tour of it. I'm so glad that I took a tour!

In the ~45 minute tour, I learned so much about plants, general landscaping designs, our changing environment, agriculture in Wisconsin, bees and the beautiful historic home on the garden grounds.

The gardens are absolutely free to the public and also can be rented out for events (ie weddings, photo opportunities, etc). They also host quite a few events during the year also. They have a really nice website where their events (most are free) are posted.

The historic home is under construction currently and is not open for viewing. It sounds as though the home will be closed for an undetermined amount of time still. Once finished, it will host environmentally friendly campus organizations.

They have quite a few different gardens to walk through or sit in to enjoy a little longer. The walkways are paved and easy to maneuver through. There's lots of seating throughout to enjoy the gardens. I love the water features and their relaxing sounds. The koi pond was probably my favorite spot. They were anxiously awaiting us to drop some food into the water and would follow us as we circumnavigated around the waters edge.

I attended a work wellness event at the Allen Centennial Gardens. What a fantastic resource on the UW-Madison campus that is free to everyone who wants to learn more about this garden and plants in general. I have been to this cute garden a hand full of times in the past, but have never taken a formal tour of it. I'm so glad that I took a tour!

Nice place to visit if you have time 2 kill. There's a bike path & campus there as well

Very comfortable. Sometimes there are outdoor concerts.

Small but underrated. Bird lovers can catch a glimpse of at least 3 species on a sunny day.

Fun gardens to walk and explore or just chill in the shade on a hot day. Like a hidden Oasis on the north end of campus.

My husband and I were married at Allen Centennial in the English Gardens on 6/15/2019. It was such a fairytale!

We had to pay to rent the arch and also paid a rental company to bring chairs and sound equipment, so those are not included in the rental price. But the ceremony was such a dream come true and our 200 guests loved it, so it was worth every penny!

Beautiful well manicured gardens. Available parking is a bit of an issue to enjoy but no different from other areas downtown or on campus.

Fantastic area for seeing nature in the heart of the city

A good place to take pictures or relax between classes

Beautiful garden-wonderful place to take pictures, or just walk around and enjoy all the different types of plants and trees.

Entrance is free. I loved the writings on display because even without a guide you are able to appreciate a number of things. I visited at a point the deans house was under renovation so I did not get the chance to step in but the gardens were good enough and beautiful.

Allen Centennial Garden is a classic public garden at UW-Madison. Great place to walk around and see the different types of gardens. Amazing in the Spring and Summer! Great place to take graduation photos

A small green space in the gloomy campus environment

Worth a visit, whether you're a student or not. A good place to bring friends. Free!!

Beautiful, free, and open 365 days of the year! Calm relief to stressful day with just a ten minute stroll through! Believe It! I love it!

Great architecture, great care to the plants inside and out.

Allen Centennial Gardens is located on the corner of Babcock Road and Observatory Drive. Surrounding a Victorian mansion that sits on the National Register of Historic Places, this 2.5 acre slice of heaven is one of my favorite Madison attractions. The gardener in me appreciates the 21 individually themed gardens and thousands of different perennials, annuals, shrubs and trees that grace the gardens. I've learned a great deal about incorporating texture, color, sound and focal points into my own garden designs from my many visits to the gardens. I also enjoy how the garden is constantly evolving; it changes from day-to-day, month-to-month and year-to-year. I see something new each time I visit.

The non-gardener in me appreciates the peaceful setting where I can meditate with little or no distractions. It also is where my wife and I were married on a perfect September afternoon many years ago. That alone is grounds for a five star rating.

Stunning, creative, so artistic, love the textures from plant to plant and rock to bark.

The house was going thru restoration when there. The garden is "small", but it is just gorgeous.