A living work of art

The Trust for Public Land works with communities to create parks, including The 606

No matter the season, The 606’s landscape rewards visitors with an ever-changing display of flowering shrubs, deciduous trees, and perennial flowers and grasses. Plants chosen for their seasonal interest also attract and provide habitat for birds, bees, and butterflies. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates landscape architects created a series of distinct garden “rooms,” drawing visitors through the 2.7 mile length of the Bloomingdale Trail.

Spring

Environmental Sentinel is the trail-wide climate monitoring artwork and flowering spectacle, conceived by Francis Whitehead, The 606 lead artist. It reveals Lake Michigan’s effect on bloom times of temperature-sensitive trees and shrubs planted along the length of The 606.

Summer

Cloned serviceberries, lilacs, and forsythias make up the flowering spectacle. Nature watchers may witness Chicago’s “cooler-by-the-lake” effect through the anticipated west-to-east bloom spread each spring.

Fall

Citizen scientists and neighbors of The 606 will help track the bloom dates each year to help us learn about the city’s microclimate and how it may change over time.

See the Map

Map & illustrations: Molly O’Halloran
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The Trust for Public Land’s mission is to create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come. Every park, playground, and public space we create is an open invitation to explore, wonder, discover, and play.

We’re proud to say that we’ve been connecting communities to the outdoors—and to each other—since 1972. Today, millions of people in America live within a 10-minute walk of a park or natural area that we helped create, and countless more visit every year. Join us as we work toward a day when everyone in America has easy access to a high quality, green place to play.

The 606 is already connecting communities like never before, and we’re not done! We have plans to build new access parks, fund the arts, and expand our education programs. Your help can make this vision possible. http://The606.org/Donate.

Pick up a hard copy of this map at one of our many events.