• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Home Garden Companion

Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal

  • Plant Library On The Journal
    • All Season Garden Color
    • Sitemap
  • Garden chores
    • Essential Garden Tools For Beginners
    • Garden Tips and Advice
  • Ilona’s Garden Home
    • Old House Blog
    • Garden Librarian
  • Ilona’s Garden Flavor Shop
  • Privacy Policy

Whetstone Park of Roses

06.08.09 | Ilona Erwin | 6 Comments

Park of Roses Sign

This park is included in my top 10 garden destinations for the Central Ohio area with good reason. Why? Take a look at the collages and let me tell you the story.

My parents took me to this park when I was a little child more than fifty years ago now, and in a way, we have grown up together. The formal opening of the Columbus Park of Roses was in June, 1953. The park seemed to have a role in many of my personal landmarks through the years.

Let’s take a little tour through the park and through time…

The parking lot is located below the park and is hidden from sight, two grand wide stairways lead you up to the recreation building, which often holds parties and in my teens was the spot for summertime dances. I listened to the local garage bands of the day and did my fair share of flirting. It was the mid sixties, just as the social upheavals of the times were simmering. The one story building had large doors opening onto open verandas – it was the perfect place for dancing under the summer evening sky; and those nights were an oasis of peace and love in a hot summer adolescence.

earth friendly garden Circling to the left you will find what was once the daffodil display garden back in the ’90’s and is now the “Earth Kind Rose Demonstration Garden”. I noticed that they still have beds of daffodils with their markers surrounding the new rose beds.

Past the long “boulevard” beds, which once held a long display of all miniature roses and is now filled with a summer display of annuals, foliage plants and grasses, is the perennial garden. On the right, the sunny circle with bright garden perennials center around an armillary sundial; nearby it holds a small, quaintly Victorian iron gazebo within the shade portion. These areas have been now planted to minimize care, I see, reflecting the general sagging interest in complicated gardening (such as English manner perennial gardens). The gazebo is a pleasant place to sit and have quiet conversations- as well as a perfect photo background. Meandering back to the main entry path one travels just a bit to the herb garden.
perennial garden displays If I recall correctly this garden started sometime in the late seventies or eighties as an herb garden. It was about on par with the rising interest in homesteading and all the herbal fervor that accompanied the general interest in “getting back to the land”. In the seventies I was beginning my family, living on a shoestring, and had begun my interest in plants via a jungle of houseplants and a nascent vegetable garden.

At first it was true to its herb garden roots, but as you can see in the pictures the increase of more ornamental and colorful plantings has slowly wedged itself in. The newest addition to the design is an artistically simple water basin. Located directly at the end of the axis centered by a large fountain, one begins to see the expanse of roses from the herb garden path which loops back into the main avenue of the landscape.
herb garden
Once the pathway turns toward the fountain one comes upon the vast array of roses, of all colors in a grand promenade to the top of the rise. At its pinnacle is an ironwork viewing tower, which upon climbing gives an inspiring overview of the roses en masse. Along all sides are large deciduous trees and handsome evergreens, enclosing the garden from any thoughts of the city or surrounding neighborhoods.

The last part of the park is reserved for the garden of heritage roses, blooming earlier, and over sooner than the rest of their hybrid progeny in the main portion of the park. I love the intimacy of this part of the garden, and like all good gardens it has a number of places of repose. Begun in the eighties, when antique roses waxed more popular in the garden world and tastes. This was the time when I was in my heyday of gardening, too.


everyone loves the roses

I was brought here to walk among the roses as a child, and as a young mother I brought my own young children here. It was always an inexpensive way to enjoy a night out… a walk through the park and a trip to get ice cream on the way home. Next to the rose garden is a wooded area where we followed a pathway and the children tried to balance their way across the creek on an old large sized pipe- the same one I had carefully traced in my youth. It leads back to the parking lot where we ended our pleasant outing.

Now the last of children are teens and we come on a summer evening to take our digital photos, and each time to have witnessed an outdoor wedding through the veil of the fountain. May their future have as many good memories of this lovely city rose garden as ours has.

Additional information:
Park of Roses
3901 North High Street

The Columbus Park of Roses is one of 133 AARS-approved public display gardens in the United States.

During World War II, more than 500 Victory Gardens were planted in the park.

The American Rose Society headquarters were located at the Columbus Park of Roses from 1952 to 1970.

Located within the Columbus community of Clintonville.

Be sure to see Park of Roses, Gardens in Ohio and A Botanical Wedding.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

← Previous Post
Zucchini Days
Next Post →
My Chores And Prairiefire Crabapple

About Ilona Erwin

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

DISCLOSURE: I may be an affiliate for products that I recommend. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Thank you, in advance for your support! Privacy Policy

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. CONEFLOWER says

    August 7, 2009 at 1:07 am

    Hi Ilona,
    Thanks for the wonderful write-up on Whetstone Park of Roses. I too went there with my parents when I was a child. My mother loved roses and now so do I. My husband and I were married there 27 years ago in October. All of the trees turned to their fall color that day. I’m sure it was just for us. LOL

  2. Ilona says

    August 7, 2009 at 4:59 am

    That is just amazing! We may have passed by each other…

  3. CONEFLOWER says

    August 7, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    We may have indeed passed… I was the short blond girl giving a wrist watch to her father on his birthday in late June. It was his first. He had always carried a pocket watch until them. Mother and I decided it was high time. Remember me? LOL

  4. johanna_lea says

    August 8, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    aaah whetstone!! park of many
    possibilities and great beauty.
    those weekend dances and the
    freedom to be out late.
    the park was eco-minded very
    early-on, with beautiful old “greenspace”– the long bikepath
    that ran several miles along
    the riverbank, through the “civilized” park, then back into
    the wild. riding on through 5′ stinging nettle patches navigated fast as you possibly could…that humid summery green smell of
    the deeper woods upriver. a great big-city park to grow up with.

    and then there were all
    the incredible rose gardens…

  5. Ilona says

    August 9, 2009 at 6:58 pm

    Well, coneflower.. it probably is going to take dates and placenames to find out 😉

    Joanne… one positive thing about Columbus was the park system. In looking up history info I had no idea the park of roses was once a community garden area- how things that go around come around, with more interestn now in such projects ( altho this park itself will not return to that usage, I’m sure).

    If you make it to Ohio, we should surely meet up in one of the gardens (or even the zoo- that is so improved and full of garden interest). we can go get Thai or Chinese, too 🙂

  6. joanne says

    August 10, 2009 at 11:40 am

    if i had the cash to come to columbus, i’d spend it on mower and tiller repair… [sorry, Mom]

Primary Sidebar

Oh, hi there!

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

Newest Postings Here

  • Hawaiian Flower Arrangements
  • HELLLOOOO, From The Other Side
  • February Gardening, Last of Winter in the Flower Garden
  • Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003
  • Wayback in Ilona Garden Time

Visit for a Spell

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Mission

Finding your way home via the garden path

Books, Tools, Tips

Read reviews from the GardenLibarian

Portrait of a Gardener

gardener musings
Musings

What’s Wrong With Today’s Gardening?

Modern gardening
What Is Wrong?

Garden Journal

fine garden journal
Journal, Planner and Log Book
buy quality plants

You might also like

seeds

National Seed Swap Day in January

Garden advice

What Makes a Low Maintenance Garden?

Create A Child’s Garden, Grow Love For Nature

Growing Indoor Flowers In December

I Found Out About “She Sheds” And Coincidentally, About Friends

Newest Postings Here

  • Hawaiian Flower Arrangements
  • HELLLOOOO, From The Other Side
  • February Gardening, Last of Winter in the Flower Garden
  • Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003
  • Wayback in Ilona Garden Time

Books, Tools, Tips

Read reviews from the GardenLibarian

Standouts

10 Useful Gardening Tips For Spring

Do You Grow Herbs? 10 Reasons To Love Them

10 Cool Season Annual Flowers To Plant

Standouts

August Gardening: Ten Suggestions

What are your ten top choices for perennial plantings?

ilonagarden

With village lights With village lights
Christmas decor #christmasspirit🎄 Christmas decor #christmasspirit🎄
Instagram post 17935013548845771 Instagram post 17935013548845771
Instagram post 17981374354427684 Instagram post 17981374354427684
Instagram post 17865517706595888 Instagram post 17865517706595888
Gift of flowers by my bedside Gift of flowers by my bedside
#mockorange #juneflowers #ohio #mockorange #juneflowers #ohio
Instagram post 18224713828022497 Instagram post 18224713828022497
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Join Me

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2023 · Your Site Name

Hazel Theme by Code + Coconut