Vander Veer Botanical Park — Attraction in Davenport

Beautiful gem of a place! This review is based more on the children’s park which is very accessible and definitely had a lot of thought in to kids with special needs. The text in the park is English and Spanish and has a feature with braille. There’s regular slides and a roller slide (which I’ve heard can be good for those with sensitives to regular slides / static electricity). They have the bigger swings with harness for older kids, accessible xylophone, spinning seats and the see saw is designed to be accessible as well. The park was extremely clean, no debris, no graffiti.

We took a walk down by the pond which was in good condition minus some small debris and the botanical garden itself was small but nicely taken care of with a little house for small kids to run in to and koi pond (people threw change in there when there is donation spots elsewhere). It is FREE. They also had bathrooms open that I didn’t check out.

Overall this place was wonderful and can’t wait to take my kid back to play! We don’t have a need for wheel chair accessibility but I truly love that this park is accessible and that if a child who needs these features come they can play right alongside...

This park has been a part of my life since as far back as I can remember and has only improved every single year extremely family-oriented always activities for the kids and the botanical center is really stepped it's game up. It is always extremely clean and in the evening can be romantic for a couple to walk. The park and pond are always nice to go to with the kids and the new part that they put in last year accommodates children with disabilities as well as children of all ages including childlike adults. I recommend anybody that's visiting the Davenport area to check out this park with your family you will not be disappointed by all means however do not feed the ducks or fish bread for it pollutes the pond so make sure you stop by Menards on your way into town and grab a bag of cracked corn it is much healthier and much better for the pond wildlife! And if you're here in the winter time don't miss out on the ice skating and beautiful lights that are absolutely beautiful I believe I are still put up by the trustees of the Scott county jail. RELAXING, FAMILY FUN AND DEFINITELY NOT A PLACE THAT YOU WANT TO PASS UP VISITING! IF I COULD RATED A 10...

The conservatory was a little disappointing. We expected it to be much larger based on the reviews we had read, oh well. I wished all of the plants inside the conservatory had signage, maybe they were just hidden or in a different spot. There was a woman sitting at the front in a desk and I had hoped she could answer some questions but she said no, she could not. Luckily, I have google lens and could find my own answers- but as a plant nerd, I was hoping to geek out with fellow plant nerds!

The park was beautiful and the weather was great. It's a public park, but despite that, we were given the evil eye by a wedding party trying to take pictures. Sorry, we drove an hour to get here and wanted to look at the roses! We literally walked by in less than 2 minutes, so it was actually kind of funny to me. Glad you're having such a beautiful wedding day that you can glare at random people walking by!!

All in all, definitely worth a visit. I bet it is really beautiful in the fall as the colors...