Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens is a botanical garden and conservatory located in Columbus, Ohio. It is open daily and an admission fee is charged. Today, it is a horticultural and educational institution showcasing exotic plant collections, special exhibitions, and Dale Chihuly artworks.
The conservatory contains more than 400 plant species. Biomes representing global climate zones include: Himalayan Mountains, Tropical Rainforest, Desert, and Pacific Island Water Garden. Additional plant collections include a Bonsai Courtyard, Showhouse with seasonal displays, orchids and tropical bonsai collections, and Palm House with more than 40 species of palms. The conservatory is set within the Franklin Park neighborhood, and surrounded by Franklin Park, the 88-acre city park of the same name.
Franklin County Agriculture Society purchased 88 acres (360,000m2) of land two miles (3km) east of downtown Columbus to host the first Franklin County Fair in 1852. By 1874, the Franklin County Agricultural Society agreed on the importance of this piece of land, increased the size to 93 acres (380,000m2), and made it the official site of the Ohio State Fair.
The state fair occupied the site until 1884, when it moved to a new location north of Columbus. With the change, the lot was abandoned. But on May 17, 1886, the site was officially revived when the Ohio State Legislature passed a resolution declaring it open for use as a public park.
In 1893, the Chicago's World Fair and Columbian Exposition was an immensely influential social and cultural event. It inspired the city of Columbus to create a horticulture building modeled after the Exposition's Glass Palace. This glass structure, built in the grand Victorian style, was erected in Franklin Park and opened to the public in 1895 as the Franklin Park Conservatory.
From 1895 to 1989, Columbus Recreation and Parks Department owned and operated the conservatory. Unfortunately, little is known about the conservatory's earliest days, as a fire in Columbus City Hall destroyed its records in 1921. Much of the conservatory's history has been documented from newspapers and personal written accounts.
For a short period starting in 1927, animals were kept in the lower rooms of the conservatory. In 1929, these animals left the conservatory and became part of the first Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.
Over time, the facility developed a reputation for horticultural excellence and the display of rare and unusual plants. The conservatory also became a popular location for family gatherings, weddings, and other events.
In 1974, in recognition of the conservatory's historic and architectural merit, the original glass structure, today known as the Palm House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The conservatory and park during AmeriFlora '92
In 1992, Columbus hosted AmeriFlora '92 and chose Franklin Park and the conservatory as the host site for this six-month international horticulture exposition. Renovation of the historic Palm House and a $14 million expansion began in 1989. Additions to the conservatory totaled 58,000 square feet and included expanded plant collections, classrooms, a library, gift shop, café and administrative offices.
In the wake of AmeriFlora, Franklin Park Conservatory's future lay in question. Ohio Legislature created the Franklin Park Conservatory Joint Recreation District for the long-term management of the conservatory. Ownership of the conservatory and surrounding 28 acres was conferred to a new 10-member board of trustees and an executive director. With a handful of dedicated staff, volunteers, and an operating budget of $500,000, the institution began to regain its identity and momentum.
Present day
In 1994, Franklin Park Conservatory debuted Blooms & Butterflies, becoming the first conservatory in the nation to showcase a seasonal butterfly exhibition. It was an instant success. Since then, the annual exhibition features thousands of tropical butterflies flying through the Pacific Island Water Garden. It attracts thousands of visitors each year, and other conservatories throughout the nation have followed suit.
The years 2003 and 2004 brought new milestones when Franklin Park Conservatory presented Chihuly at the Conservatory, a blockbuster exhibition that increased attendance by 182 percent. On October 29, 2004, the Friends of the Conservatory, a private, nonprofit group that supports the conservatory's programming, made a stunning move. They purchased nearly the entire exhibition of Dale Chihuly's artworks valued at close to $7 million. To this day, Franklin Park Conservatory is the only public botanical garden in the world to own a signature collection of Chihuly's magnificent glass artworks, which represents over 3,000 pieces of glass.
Several exhibitions that merge nature and art have followed. Chapungu: Stories in Stone was a collection stone sculptures by self-taught artists from Zimbabwe, Branching Out featured the work of Patrick Daugherty, and imaginative garden railroads by Paul Busse in Enchanted Express. Contemporary artists including Dennis Oppenheim, Laura Stein, and Andy Goldsworthy came together in the exhibition Bending Nature. Glass artist Debra Moore's orchids were displayed in 2011, and sculpture by Aurora Robson debuted at the conservatory in 2012.
In the fall of 2013, the conservatory hosted an exhibition by internationally recognized British artist Bruce Munro. Light at Franklin Park Conservatory featured 10 large-scale light installations and gallery works.
In 2002, the conservatory undertook the first phase of a comprehensive master plan and raised $23 million to support new construction projects. New gardens, event venues and additions to the Palm House were dedicated in 2008, and contemporary light artist James Turrell was commissioned to illuminate the Palm House with a permanent installation. In September 2009, the conservatory converted four acres of Franklin Park into the four-acre ScottsMiracle-Gro Community Garden Campus. The first phase of the master plan closed in 2011 with the completion of a 9,200 sq. ft. support greenhouse.
The facility offers a wide range of educational classes for school groups, families, and individuals of all ages. Its extensive plant collections and special exhibitions provide hands-on learning opportunities about the natural world, gardening, and the arts.
Dale Chihuly is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is well known in the field of blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture".
The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 6.6 million specimens, is the second largest in North America, behind that of the New York Botanical Garden. The Index Herbariorum code assigned to the herbarium is MO and it is used when citing housed specimens.
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a 250-acre (100 ha) site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a greenhouse containing several habitats; and the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, which contains one of the world's largest collections of botany-related texts. As of 2016, over a million people visit the New York Botanical Garden annually.
Longwood Gardens is a botanical garden that consists of over 1,077 acres of gardens, woodlands, and meadows in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, United States in the Brandywine Creek Valley. It is one of the premier horticultural display gardens in the United States and is open to visitors year-round to enjoy native and exotic plants and horticulture, events and performances, seasonal and themed attractions, as well as educational lectures, courses, and workshops.
The Birmingham Botanical Gardens are a 15-acre (6-hectare) botanical garden situated in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. The gardens are located 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) south-west of Birmingham city centre at grid reference SP049854. Designed in 1829, the gardens are Grade II* listed in Historic Englands's Register of Parks and Gardens, and retain many original features and layout, which was designed by the landscape gardener and horticulturalist John Claudius Loudon. The site is notable for its range of glasshouses and gardens, which display a wide variety of plants and birds. Birmingham Botanical Gardens is managed by Birmingham Botanical and Horticultural Society, a registered charity. The gardens are open daily to the public with paid admission.
A conservatory is a building or room having glass or other transparent roofing and walls, used as a greenhouse or a sunroom. Usually it refers to a space attached to a conventional building such as a house, especially in the United Kingdom. Elsewhere, especially in America, it can often refer to a large freestanding glass-walled building in a botanic garden or park, sometimes also called a palm house if tall enough for trees. Municipal conservatories became popular in the early 19th century.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden is a 30 acres (12 ha) botanical garden located adjacent to Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Incorporated in 1976, the garden's mission is to "develop and maintain plant collections for the purposes of display, education, conservation, research and enjoyment."
AmeriFlora '92 was an international horticultural exhibition held in Columbus, Ohio, United States from April 20 to October 12, 1992. Taking place on 88 acres of landscaped grounds at Franklin Park, the exhibition cost $95 million to produce and attracted 5.5 million visitors. The exhibition was billed as the first international flower show in the United States.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is an 83-acre (34 ha) botanic garden with extensive collections of rare tropical plants including palms, cycads, flowering trees, and vines. It is located in the city of Coral Gables, Miami-Dade County, just south of Miami, surrounded at the north and west by Matheson Hammock Park.
The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens is a 15-acre (6.1 ha) botanical garden located at 900 South Palm Avenue in Sarasota, Florida. The Gardens are located on the grounds of the former home of Marie and William Selby. The Gardens acquired the Historic Spanish Point campus on May 1, 2020. The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens is a Smithsonian affiliate, and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
The Adelaide Botanic Garden is a 51-hectare (130-acre) public garden at the north-east corner of the Adelaide city centre, in the Adelaide Park Lands. It encompasses a fenced garden on North Terrace and behind it the Botanic Park. Work was begun on the site in 1855, with its official opening to the public on 4 October 1857.
Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is a 158-acre (64 ha) botanical garden, art museum, and outdoor sculpture park located in Grand Rapids Township, Michigan, United States. Opened in 1995, Meijer Gardens quickly established itself in the Midwest as a major cultural attraction jointly focused on horticulture and sculpture.
The Lincoln Park Conservatory is a conservatory and botanical garden in Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois. The conservatory is located at 2391 North Stockton Drive just south of Fullerton Avenue, west of Lake Shore Drive, and part of the Lincoln Park, Chicago community area. The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool and the North Pond Nature Sanctuary are further to the north along Stockton Drive. Along with the Garfield Park Conservatory on Chicago's west side, the Lincoln Park Conservatory provides significant horticultural collections, educational programs and community outreach efforts.
The Irwin M. Krohn Conservatory is a conservatory located in Eden Park within Cincinnati, Ohio in the United States.
Palm house is a term sometimes used for large and high heated display greenhouses that specialise in growing palms and other tropical and subtropical plants. In Victorian Britain, several ornate glass and iron palm houses were built in botanical gardens and parks, using cast iron architecture. Especially in English-speaking countries outside the British Isles, these are often called conservatories, in the UK mainly a term for small glass structures attached to houses.
Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections include some of the 27,000 taxa curated by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, while the herbarium, one of the largest in the world, has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site.
Semmozhi Poonga, variously spelled as Semmoli Poonga, is a botanical garden in Chennai set up jointly by the Horticulture and Agricultural Engineering department of the Government of Tamil Nadu. The garden was opened on 24 November 2010 by then chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and is the first botanical garden in the city. The garden is located in the Cathedral Road–Anna Salai junction, opposite the American Consulate, on the erstwhile Drive-in Woodlands Hotel. Encompassing an area of 20 acres, it was built at a cost of ₹ 80 million. More than 500 species of plants are being grown in the area, in addition to the 80 trees that was already in existence during the development of the park, some of them being more than 100 years old. The garden houses some of the popular exotic flora and rare plant species, medicinal and aromatic herbs. Many of the exotic plants are imported from countries like China and Thailand, including a plethora of bonsai varieties of ficus microcarpa and ficus ginseng.
Franklin Park is a neighborhood located on the Near East Side of Columbus, Ohio. Both the historic neighborhood and landmark, the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, are named after the 88-acre park.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
10 
CoGo 
