Optional Tours in Columbus and Central Ohio in 2012

By Lori Kingston, Marketing Director, Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens .

Tours of gardens and green spaces are popular and memorable elements of APGA conferences, and in 2012, tours of Columbus and central Ohio gardens, parks, and green spaces planned for conference attendees will more than meet expectations.

With an enviable system of 16 parks that encompass 26,000 acres, Central Ohio’s Metro Parks include glacial moraines, prairies, birding sites, historic farms, creeks, and lakes. The City of Columbus manages more than 200 city parks through its Recreation and Parks Department including small pocket and memorial parks, a unique topiary garden, and large, historic parks that rim the downtown and connect it to nearby established, residential neighborhoods. An hour’s drive outside of the city in any direction offers tourists access to prairies, historic landscapes, arboreta, nurseries, and private estate gardens.

To showcase and sample the gardens and green spaces of Columbus and central Ohio, three full-day tours and four half-day tours are planned. Be immersed in gardens of all shapes, sizes, and themes when you visit the area’s public, private, residential, corporate, new, and historic gardens.

Choose a full-day tour and travel to the north, west, or northeast of Columbus. One full-day jaunt begins at the Topiary Park in downtown Columbus where you will find a landscape of a painting of a landscape. (You’ll "get it" when you see it.)  Then move on to a city park bursting with the blooms of 23,000 roses before touring a 121-acre Metro Park garden. End the day in a private, residential garden.

Take the tour that travels 70 miles west to the Metroparks of the Miami Valley: Wegerzyn, Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm, Aullwood Gardens, and Cox Arboretum. Or choose a third tour and explore the open-by-appointment-only Schnormeier Gardens before visiting a nursery and traveling to the Kingwood Center,  the 47-acre grounds of a 1920’s era estate.

Four half-day tours will provide a variety of experiences.  Put on your walking shoes for an urban garden hike that will cover nearly four miles beginning at the large and lush atrium of the international headquarters of Nationwide. Then stroll through downtown Columbus to its new green space where the public gathers for music, food, and fun amidst the city’s bustle; then to the top of a large commercial building to view its a third-of-an-acre green roof. The tour concludes at the fountains, green space and city views of Columbus’ new riverfront park, Scioto Mile.

Maybe you will choose to dig into the history and the gardens of charming German Village, one of the most unique residential areas in any US city. Take this half-day tour of small but mighty residential and “pocket” gardens and the 23-acre grand dame of Columbus: historic Schiller Park.

A third half-day tour opportunity introduces you to yet another new park just south of downtown Columbus—Grange Insurance Audubon Center—offering a beautiful setting for nature-based education in the midst of a major city. Then visit three successful, award-winning community gardens, including one managed by the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Afterwards, meet the farming family behind Black Creek Bistro, and enjoy a lunch prepared from their fresh, local ingredients.

If residential gardens are your interest, choose the half-day tour that will take you to the Ohio Heritage Garden at the Ohio Governor’s Mansion. See this AIA award-winning garden that highlights the five physiographic regions of Ohio. Then meet the neighbors when you visit two nearby residential gardens: one an established two-acre formal English garden, and one that incorporates modern art and a range of popular and unusual plants.

There are tours scheduled every day so you can take advantage of more than one opportunity.  Whether it’s walking, a short bus trip within the city, or a full-day tour into the surrounding area, you’ll want to experience the gardens, homes, parks, and green spaces of Columbus and central Ohio while attending the 2012 APGA conference.