Best Hummingbird Gardens in Cook County, Illinois

One of the world's great living museums, the Chicago Botanic Garden features 28 gardens and four natural areas across 385 acres on and around nine islands, with six miles of lake shoreline on the North Shore of Chicago. The garden hosts a robust native plant program and is a documented breeding site for ruby-throated hummingbirds in the woodland areas adjacent to the garden. Garden wildlife staff note that ruby-throated hummingbirds "travel through the Chicago area in great numbers during September and October" as migrants arrive from Canada, making September an exceptional month to visit.

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Designed by Dutch landscape architect Piet Oudolf and opened in 2004, Lurie Garden is a 2.5-acre naturalistic perennial garden in the heart of Millennium Park, celebrated as one of the world's finest urban gardens. The garden contains approximately 350 types of plants — 193 perennial herbaceous species — with a strong emphasis on Midwest prairie and woodland natives. Eastern bee balm is documented as "a magnet for hummingbirds and butterflies" by the garden's own staff, making this an unexpectedly productive hummingbird stop in the urban core during fall migration.

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