Our Mission

We preserve and enhance Dunn Gardens as a public resource, celebrating the original 1915 Olmsted design and showcasing the evolution of garden design in the Pacific Northwest.

Visiting Dunn Gardens

  • The gardens are open to the public, we are open Monday-Saturday, 9am-4pm.
  • The entrance fee to the gardens for Not-Yet-Members is $10/person.
  • Members can bring up to 4 friends for free every time you visit.
  • We offer Docent-led tours April-October, $15/person.
  • Throughout the year, we host many events from Winter Solstice to Books & Beer. Members and Not-Yet-Members are welcome to all these events.

 

Donate

Preservation of the Dunn Gardens is dependent on your generosity and we thank you for your support. You can donate to the Dunn Gardens Endowment, General Funding, or for a specific purpose. Your gifts are tax-deductible. Thank you!

Rent the Garden

Consider renting Ed's Cottage for your next small event. It is an ideal location for a quiet corporate retreat or meeting, a self-catered meal, cocktail party, picnic, or a micro-wedding.

Find out more about renting a room and micro-weddings!

Land Acknowledgement Statement

We acknowledge Dunn Gardens' location on the ancestral homelands of the Duwamish and other Indigenous Peoples. We honor the land, plants, and animals, and the Peoples who have shepherded them through time immemorial. We celebrate the resilience, strength and enduring presence of Indigenous Peoples and commit to stewardship through our preservation of this healing landscape.

Dunn Gardens in Support of Black Lives Matter

Dunn Gardens stands in support of Black Lives Matter and are deeply saddened by the brutal violence and senseless killings occurring across the country. We recognize the growing disparities within our communities due to deep-rooted racial injustices and acknowledge our duty to proactively address these inequalities as an agent for positive change.

The creation of the E.B. Dunn Historic Garden Trust in 1993 was to provide a garden open for the public to enjoy. While we strive to provide a tranquil, inclusive and safe green space, we must first acknowledge our roots. Designed by the Olmsted Brothers Landscape firm in 1915 as a private family garden, enjoyment of this space was limited to friends and family. Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) was a pioneer in recognizing the disparities in access to such public and private green space, writing, "The enjoyment of the choicest natural scenes in the country and the means of recreation connected with them is thus a monopoly, in a very peculiar manner, of a very few very rich people. The great mass of society, including those to whom it would be of the greatest benefit, is excluded from it."

Today, we recognize this monopoly still exists. We continually seek to make the Dunn Gardens welcoming and inclusive, and recognize our responsibility to proactively reach out to the Black community and people of color to listen, seek varying perspectives and take action to diversify our Board, staff and visitors.

We look forward to sharing, learning and growing together, and welcome any suggestions to strengthen our ties with diverse populations in our city and region.