Pierce’s Park in Baltimore, Maryland
By Teresa WoodardOn a recent family getaway to Baltimore, Md., I was reminded of the appeal of public children’s gardens for kids of all ages. Even our teens loved the willow tunnel at Pierce’s Park near the city’s inner harbor. Here’s a list of favorite children’s gardens to explore in the Midwest:
- Bookworm Gardens (Sheboygan, Wisc.) — Literary ties with an alphabet flower garden, a Secret Garden, a Hansel and Gretel style cottage, a Peter Rabbit vegetable garden, a sunflower house and a Magic Treehouse.
- Children’s Discovery Garden at Wegerzyn Gardens (Dayton, Ohio) — Don’t miss the new maze by willow sculptor Patrick Dougherty.
- Children’s Garden at Morton Arboretum (Lisle, Ill.) — Secret streams, colossal acorns for climbing, and giant tree root slides and more to play and explore the natural world.
- Frederick Meijer Gardens (Grand Rapids, Mich.) — A sensory garden, a Great Lakes garden, a fossil filled rock quarry, a labyrinth and a wetlands with a kid-sized beaver dam.
- Garfield Park Children’s Garden (Indianapolis, Ind.) — Colorfully painted tractor tires as raised beds, fun scarecrows and other clever ideas for vegetable gardening with kids.
Garfield Park Children’s Gardens, Indianapolis, Ind.
- Hershey Children’s Garden at Cleveland Botanical Gardens (Cleveland, Ohio) — A scrounger garden, cave, dwarf forests, worm bins, tree house and sensory-filled herb garden.
- Schnuck Children’s Garden at Missouri Botanical Gardens (St. Louis, Mo.) — History comes to life with a limestone cave, a steamboat and a Midwestern prairie village.
- The Sisters’ Garden at Inniswood Metro Gardens (Westerville, Ohio) — A lovely blend of natural and constructed garden places.
- Smiley Park Children’s Park (Van Wert, Ind. ) — A Master gardeners’ project with a butterfly garden.
- Topiary Park (Columbus, Ohio) — A topiary interpretation of George Seurat’s famous painting A Sunday Afternoon on t
