Arboretum at Penn State

yellow flowers in the foreground with a large university building in the background

Date of Visit: July 27, 2024

If you’ve ever visited Penn State’s University Park Campus, it can feel like a world in and of itself. The campus is massive, but it does offer many discoveries for those willing to look.

One place that we discovered this summer is the Arboretum at Penn State.

small water structure surrounded by small bushy trees at the Penn State Arboretum

The arboretum opened to the public in 2009 and serves as an attraction for the public, a place of respite for college students, and a working research center.

Admission to the Arboretum is free, but we found it to be as enjoyable as many similar paid attractions that we’ve found.

(There was a $1 per hour charge for parking at the lot across the street).

bushy yellow flowers in front of a lawn at Penn State Arboretum

The arboretum is located behind the recently opened Palmer Museum, which relocated to site in 2024. Guests walk beneath a museum walkway which serves as sort of an entrance arch for those not visiting the museum.

Of course, you can visit both if you would like – the Palmer Museum is also free to enter, though there is a suggested donation in lieu of an admission charge.

Stepping onto the arboretum grounds, we decided to follow the walkway to the right, which carried us through a tunnel-like passage with high walls of plants on either side of us.

The pathway led to the Overlook Pavilion, which offered a nice rest area with chairs, restrooms and all of the maps and brochures needed for your visit.

entrance to Childhood's Gate Children's Garden at the Arboretum at Penn State

Beyond the Pavilion was our favorite part of the attraction: the Childhood’s Gate Children’s Garden.

We’ve visited similar gardens and arboretums in the past and all of them have a children’s garden. This was among the best.

Herbs and vegetable plants in the children's garden at Penn State Aboretum

There were so many things for our six-year-old to discover. We started by walking through the vegetables and herbs, getting ideas for our own garden while Jakob ran around.

Statue of a lying bison at Penn State Arboretum

He took off over a small climbing wall to another section of the children’s garden – the wading stream. This man-made stream runs through a series of rock formations and is a great place for the kids to jump around and over the small waterway.

cave feature in the children's garden at the Arboretum at Penn State

The stream begins inside a cave that has been built as special attraction. Outside, kids can dip a rolling brush into water and “paint” the outer wall. Inside, there are replicas of stalagmites and stalactites, as well as a sand pit where kids can dig for plastic fossils hidden inside.

a young boy and a toddler sit on a green caterpillar bench at Penn State Arboretum

Childhood’s Gate also features a whimsical place to take a rest with mushroom-like tables and chairs and a larger-than-life caterpillar for kids to climb on.

Moving on from the children’s garden we arrived on the esplanade – a grassy lawn that’s home to one of the signature features of the Arboretum, the sundial.

The dial is precisely placed to display actual solar time. Even with the brochure handout, I struggled to read it, but that didn’t take away from the beauty of the piece.

bee hotel at the Arboretum at Penn State

At the top end of the esplanade was the pollinator garden. We spent a few minutes at a glass-enclosed bee box, watching the worker bees moving about the hive and searching (maybe successfully) for the queen.

Nearby was the “bird house,” a small wooden structure with a handful of rocking chairs where visitors could sit and look out across the landscape at the birds and insects that flew from flower to flower.

turtle swimming in a pond at the Arboretum at Penn State

Another seating area was farther down the path near a small pond. The pond is filled with koi and one curious turtle that delighted all the kids that were gathered around.

Farther on is the rose garden with its arbors that guided guests along the path and past the shades of red, pink, and yellow.

soaring waters fountain at Penn State Arboretum

On the other side was another signature piece – the “soaring waters.” Instead of a standard fountain where the water comes up from the middle and sprays outward, the installation has jets of water colliding in the center and falling to create the opposite effect.

The fountain lines up with the overlook pavilion on the opposite side with perfectly cut hedges framing the structures beautifully.

Beyond the fountain is the Marsh Meadow which stretches to Park Avenue. It’s filled with grassy trails and a boardwalk that connects the arboretum with the edge of campus.

Because, after all, this is a part of Penn State and it exists for the students as much as it does for visitors. As for the research I mentioned earlier, there were many examples throughout.

rock and plants at the Arboretum at Penn State

In one area, an apparatus was set up to study insects as they interacted with the plants. In another, a patch of native plants that have been struggling in the wild were planted to study what was causing their decline.

And while visiting the pond, a student rolled up on a scooter and took water samples to take back to the lab (and also provided some additional education for those around).

ferns on display at the Arboretum at Penn State

It was certainly an impressive place, and the Arboretum map shows there are plans to expand. I look forward to it, but even at the current size, we spent two enjoyable hours exploring and didn’t even venture out into the meadow.

And we will definitely enjoy visiting again in the future.

When You Go

Parking is avaialble on the lot across the street at the Lewis Katz Building. Rates are $1 per hour for visitors.
We spent two hours at the Arboretum with half of that time at the Children’s Garden. But we also didn’t venture out into the Meadow trails.
The Arboretum offers regular programming. Check their website for daily events and offerings.