Winter Wellness in Indoor Gardens: Nine Global Destinations

When we set aside our to-do lists and digital devices to take a walk in the woods, we feel noticeably better. And science backs us up on this. Many studies have documented the wellness benefits of being in nature, from an easing of anxiety and depression to an immune system boost and a blood pressure drop.

Ongoing research into the topic, as part of the Nature Unlocked program run by London’s Kew Gardens, has found that spending just 10 minutes in a green space can lower your resting heart rate. Plants exert a powerful emotional pull on us too. Bryony Langley, botanical horticulturalist at Kew, ascribes this, in part, to the fact that “we’ve evolved together for millions of years, and plants are responsible for sustaining all life on Earth.”

On nice days, we can simply step out to a nearby park or forest. But how can we get these benefits during the winter when frigid weather keeps us inside?

Fortunately, enclosed gardens bursting with plants replicate the soothing effects of the natural world. Here are nine global gardens with lush indoor spaces ideal for wintertime visits.

She cites the multisensory experience produced by the dense vegetation, the balmy temperatures, and the hissing misters. A 30-foot-high walkway sends visitors on a restorative jaunt into the tree canopy.

“Looking at greenery from different angles allows our brains to engage with something beyond the everyday spaces we’re familiar with,” Langley says.

Other indoor spaces include the Princess of Wales Conservatory, with its annual winter orchid festival, and the Temperate House, the world’s largest surviving Victorian glasshouse, where yoga classes are held. Indoor Pilates and sound bathing are also part of Kew’s Wellbeing in Nature series.

Sprawled across more than a thousand acres 30 miles west of Philadelphia, this historic site once owned by entrepreneur-philanthropist Pierre du Pont attracts crowds with its eye-popping flower shows and seasonal displays.

During quieter winter months, the multiple indoor gardens offer tranquility. “For a powerful wellness boost, tune into the sound of flowing water,” suggests Emerson Marine, continuing education manager. “The gentle movement of water throughout Longwood’s conservatories can be deeply calming.”

Color also plays a big role, from the recently restored Orchid House, blooming in countless hues, to the Acacia Passage, adorned with yellow flower puffs in February and March. It feels “energizing, restorative, and inspiring all at once,” Marine says. Even the bathrooms get a green glow-up from fern-sprouting walls.

With a dedicated focus on wellbeing, Longwood offers indoor programs on topics such as happiness, forest therapy, and herbal medicine.

In the heart of a teeming metropolis of some 14 million people, this imperial site turned public garden provides calm respite from cognitive overload. During the spring, Shinjuku Gyoen is a popular place for cherry blossom viewing. But in colder months, it’s the large, modern greenhouse that draws visitors.

Inside the gracefully bowed facade, walkways meander through the tropical environment, passing ferns, orchids, and cacti dwarfed by towering palms. A bridge crosses a pool filled with water lilies and fed by a cascading waterfall. Keep an eye out for the endangered plants, such as those from Okinawa and the Ogasawara Islands, that the greenhouse works to conserve.

Capping a visit here with an antioxidant-rich matcha in the garden’s tearoom seems only fitting.

On the Windy City’s West Side, one of North America’s largest indoor conservatories aims to “change lives through the power of nature.” Inside the rounded structures meant to emulate Midwest haystacks, visitors travel from the tropics to the desert and back in time.

The toasty Palm House features more than 70 of its namesake plants, while the Fern Room conjures prehistoric Illinois with flora that includes centuries-old cycads. Listen closely to the waterfall built to echo the timbre of Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song.”

In the Desert House, cacti and succulents thrive in varied shapes and sizes. Another display explores photosynthesis—perhaps the ultimate wellness process, since it keeps all of us alive. Take a moment to ponder this at a bistro table in Horticulture Hall, which also hosts a monthly yoga class.

Near a bend in the North Saskatchewan River, unexpected shapes appear: four glass pyramids, each enclosing a different serene biome. In the tropical pyramid, a waterfall spills into a central pool embraced by palms, banana trees, and weeping figs. The temperate biome offers pops of color with winter-blooming hellebores and camellias, while desert plants and rotating displays fill the other two.

“The aromas of the pyramids can change on a daily or weekly basis depending on what is blooming,” says Megan Gergatz-McMorran, acting attractions program manager. One of her favorite fragrances? The citrus-scented flowers of the Calamondin orange tree.

In the evening, visitors can stroll in the shadows of illuminated plants and gaze through the glass at stars in the night sky. Other experiences include sound bathing, forest bathing, yoga, and mindfulness sessions.

Part of the Denmark Natural History Museum, this garden has a whopping 27 glasshouses. The grandest is the nearly 10,000-square-foot conservatory whose three-tiered centerpiece rises like an airy confection.

Inside the rainforest climate of this 1874 Victorian Palm House, visitors roam among Colombian coca shrubs, clove trees, begonias, and banyan figs. For a tip-top view—and a workout—climb the cast-iron spiral staircase.

In the Palm House wings, immersive environments range from swampy mangroves to the dryer Mediterranean. Wings in motion are the stars of the Butterfly House, where the colorful insects flit between flowers, bewitching in their beauty and fragility.

It was none other than George Washington who first expressed a desire for a national botanic garden, and in 1820, his idea bore fruit. The country’s oldest continually operating public garden (originally in a different location) sits on the U.S. Capitol Grounds, providing an antidote to stressors political and otherwise.

The conservatory’s 10 garden rooms, including one housing a large tropical forest with a canopy mezzanine, cultivate flora specimens native to Hawaii, medicinal plants, and 3,000 orchids with a multitude of scents, shapes, and colors.

A fan favorite? The corpse flower. While its name doesn’t signal wellness, the pungent flower that can soar to nine feet does induce a mighty sense of awe. Each plant blooms for only two or three days once every two or three years, but the garden’s large collection means that annual multiple blooms are possible.

At this National Historic Landmark, a main attraction is the Jetsons-esque Climatron. Opened in 1960, it was the first geodesic dome put to use as a conservatory. The 85-degree Fahrenheit temperature and 85 percent humidity support a tropical rainforest with waterfalls and lush foliage.

“Humans see more shades of green than any other color, and green is known to be a relaxing color,” says Liz Byrde, therapeutic horticulture coordinator. “Taking the time to note all the subtle variations of green can be a gentle exercise in mindfulness.”

Throughout the indoor spaces, which include the Shoenberg Arid House and the Linnean House, “the variation of the plants, from small and soft to huge and covered in spikes, is fertile ground for wonder,” Byrde adds. As is the annual winter orchid show. The therapeutic horticulture team offers classes on topics such as herbal tea, flower arranging, and sensory gardening.

With a longtime identity as a “garden city” and a new focus on mental health tourism, it’s no surprise that Singapore has superlative green spaces. Here, heat is the inclement weather, so the two futuristic conservatories in this 260-acre urban waterfront park tout their cool factor. (Cool in this case means 73-77 degrees Fahrenheit.)

In the three-acre Flower Dome, the world’s largest glass greenhouse, explore a blooming field, big-trunked baobabs, ancient olive trees, and gardens with plants from regions around the globe.

Next door, the Cloud Forest mimics a tropical mountain area with its 138-foot-tall peak draped in ferns, mosses, and orchids. An elevator whisks visitors to the summit, and they descend a circular route infused with the sights and sounds of a waterfall, the sensation of mist, and the scents of flowers.