Dow Gardens is a 110 acres (44.5 ha) botanical garden

Botanical garden

A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...

 located at 1809 Eastman Avenue, Midland, Michigan

Midland, Michigan

Midland is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan in the Tri-Cities region of the state. It is the county seat of Midland County. The city's population was 41,863 as of the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area....

, USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is open to the public, and currently contains over 1700 varieties of plants hardy in mid-Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. The main entrance has geographical coordinates of 43.623378°N 84.249612°W.

The Dow Gardens were started in 1899 by Herbert Dow, founder of The Dow Chemical Company

Dow Chemical Company

The Dow Chemical Company is a multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. As of 2007, it is the second largest chemical manufacturer in the world by revenue and as of February 2009, the third-largest chemical company in the world by market capitalization .Dow...

, on eight acres (3.2 ha) of flat, sandy land. Subsequent generations of the Dow family have continued to develop the gardens.