Villa Flora

Jennie Nunn

San Francisco's seeming more like its old self these days, thanks to the return of a beloved institution (gush, gush)—the 124-year-old Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. After an eight-year hiatus (brought about by severe storm damage), the frosty glass-paned, 12,000-square-foot Victorian edifice will reopen its doors on September 20.

Longtime San Franciscans will recall the conservatory's Alice in Wonderland landscape, which houses 1,500 species from a wide variety of tropical climates and regions. "You can imagine yourself in the jungle, mountaintops, and the waterfall," says Scot Medbury, director of the Conservatory. The planter's paradise, which took three years and $25 million to restore to full bloom, will feature everything from rare dracula orchids from Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru to six-foot floating lilies and legendary cycads of the dinosaur era. Of the mix, Medbury says, "we wanted to provide a collection of experiences, bizarre or beautiful." Now there's no excuse not to stop and smell the flowers.