Name of Garden:
Elizabeth Park
History:
The area which is now known as Elizabeth Park was once owned by Charles H. Pond. Mr. Pond was a wealthy industrialist and statesman whose career included the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, Hartford National Bank, and Treasurer of the State of Connecticut.
When Mr. Pond passed away, he willed his estate to the City of Hartford with the stipulations that it be used as a horticultural park and that it be named for his wife, Elizabeth, who had died a few years earlier.
Description:
The City hired the landscape firm of Olmsted and Son to design the park and the park shows the trademark Olmsted vistas of overlooks above expanses of meadows, fields and water. The City hired Theodore Wirth as its first park superintendent to design the garden areas. Mr. Wirth's first project was to create a rose garden because, in his words, "it would please the people." This first planting grew from 100 bushes to the two and a half acre garden of some 15,000 bushes that is the center piece of Elizabeth Park and is known throughout the world.
Today the park encompasses 102 acres and boasts many garden areas, pathways, greenhouses, lawns, a picnic grove, a pond and recreation areas. The world famous rose garden is the oldest municipally operated rose garden in the country. It is a two and a half acre garden which has about 800 varieties of roses that amount to 15,000 plants.
ADDRESS:
P.O. Box 370361
West Hartford, Connecticut 06137
Call the Information Center at (860) 231-9443
Directions:
Elizabeth Park is located at the corner of Prospect Avenue and Asylum Avenue on the Hartford / West Hartford line. Take exit 44 (Prospect Avenue) off I- 84 and head North on Prospect Avenue. The entrance to the gardens is about 3/4 of a mile on your left.
Admission and Hours:
The Garden is open seven days a week, year round. Admission is FREE.
Website:
http://www.elizabethpark.org/ |
