The New Orleans Botanical Garden has its roots in the Great Depression as a project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Originally known as the City Park Rose Garden, it opened in 1936 as New Orleans’ first public classical garden. It is one of the few remaining examples of public garden design from the WPA and Art Deco Period, a showcase of three notable talents: New Orleans Architect Richard Koch, Landscape architect William Wiedorn, and Artist Enrique Alferez.

Reborn as the New Orleans Botanical Garden in the early 1980s, the garden’s collections contains over 2,000 varieties of plants from all over the world set among the nation’s largest stand of mature live oaks. The site contains the recently renovated Conservatory of the Two Sisters, several theme gardens containing aquatics, ornamental trees and shrubs, perennials, and the new New Orleans Historic Train Garden. The garden also encompasses the Pavilion of the Two Sisters, the Garden Study Center, and the rebuilt Lath House.

The garden is open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Admission for adults is $6; it’s $3 for children ages 5-12, and free for kids younger than 5.

The official address is 1 Palm Drive, New Orleans, Louisiana, but it’s easier to find the entrance by looking for the Pavilion of the Two Sisters on Victory Avenue in City Park, behind the New Orleans Museum of Art.

If you’re traveling nearby next month, Road Trips Gardeners, note that the annual greenhouse plant sale is 9 a.m.-noon August 21, 2010, featuring annuals, perennials, herbs and tropicals. (Pictured is Strobilanthes dyerians.)