Check out the U.S. Botanic Garden’s holiday season exhibit, Season’s Greenings: All Aboard. Season’s Greenings showcases historic railroad stations across the country including three Maryland stations (Ellicott City, Viaduct Hotel, and Point of Rocks) and DC’s own Union Station. Each year, the U.S. Botanic Garden staff and Applied Imagination of Alexandria, Kentucky, collaborate to create a theme and then to build the plant-based sculptures based on that theme. All the train stations are made of plant materials.
There are more than 20 replicas of railroad stations and two fantasy stations: Dino Depot (a large dinosaur) and the North Pole. Located in the West Gallery, the iconic stations take up the entire room with G gauge model trains running through. In addition, there is a “caboose” tall enough for kids to walk through to view dioramas of peanut farms, citrus groves, and grain fields. Outside the U.S. Botanic Garden at the front entrance is another train set among winter greens.
In the Garden Court, there are 12 Washington DC landmarks plus the new Union Station. Each building is constructed on a frame of acrylic-based foam, casting resin is poured in the window cutouts, and wall surfaces are finished with sand-based grout. Each building is made of plant materials and if you look closely, you will see everything from walnuts to acorns.

Statues of Union Station are made of corn husks, tulip poplar seeds, lafi pods, and other plant materials.
Also in the Garden Court are thousands of poinsettias, from traditional red, to white, marbled, and lime green. Upright, red twigs and fully decorated live trees punctuate each river of poinsettias.
The Season’s Greenings exhibit runs from Thanksgiving to January 1, 2019. The U.S. Botanic Garden, located at 100 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington DC, is open to the public, free of charge, every day of the year from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. On most Tuesdays and Thursdays in December the Conservatory will be open until 8:00 pm for live seasonal music concerts and after-dark holiday exhibit viewing. For more information and the music schedule, visit http://www.usbg.gov.
Cincinnati Union Terminal, Ohio