Queens Botanical Garden gets $12 million to replace greenhouses that failed in last winter's deep freeze

Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing will replace its 1960s greenhouses with two new ones, paid for with $12 million in state funding, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic announced Oct. 30.

What happened last winter

On one of the coldest weekends of 2026, the greenhouses that hold the garden's tropical collection, orchids, seedlings and other warm-weather plants lost heat, and hundreds of plants died, including mature banana trees, according to the announcement. It was not the first failure of the aging structures, but it was the worst.

Executive Director Evie Hantzopoulos was in Albany when the greenhouses failed in January and asked Rozic, whose district includes the garden, for help, QNS reported. Rozic and the Queens Assembly delegation lobbied Heastie, who committed $10 million and added another $2 million at the Oct. 30 event. Hantzopoulos told QNS the current greenhouses also have cracked, uneven paths that are tripping hazards for staff.

"Quite literally overnight, the greenhouses failed," Rozic said, according to QNS.

What the new greenhouses will change

• Open to visitors: the tropical and annual collections will be partly open to the public for the first time in the garden's history.
• Accessible: both greenhouses will be ADA-accessible, with year-round classes and programs.
• New location: they will move to the edge of the grounds. The old greenhouses, now in the middle of the garden, will be demolished and the space turned into a public garden, Hantzopoulos told QNS.
• Timeline: planning starts in 2027, with an eye to opening within the following three years.

The project is one of several at the 39-acre garden on Main Street. A new Education Center and Children's Discovery Garden are planned over the next five years, and the education center under construction is due in fall 2027. Earlier allocations included $500,000 from Rep. Grace Meng in fiscal 2024 and $2.25 million from Queens Assembly members and state Sen. John Liu for the Rose Garden, visitor bathrooms and fencing.