This Summertime Garden In The Countryside Is Well Worth The Road Trip From Cleveland
By Nikki Rhoades|Published August 08, 2019
×
Nikki Rhoades
Author
Nikki is a lifelong Ohioan with a love for literature. She holds a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Akron and has enjoyed publishing her written work since 2007. She has a love of travel and does so frequently, though she believes that home is where the heart is — she continues to work in and around Cleveland as a digital content specialist to this day, working on everything from commercial scripts and social media posts to grassroots marketing initiatives.
Summertime in Ohio is enchanting. It’s a season of golden sunshine, vibrant flowers, and memory-making adventures. If you live in Cleveland, there is much to do in this season — waterfall hikes, road trips, and brilliant gardens are all worth visiting. If you’re longing for the delightful aromas of the latter attraction, there’s one garden about an hour south of Cleveland that you simply have to see.
Mansfield, Ohio may be most famous for its purportedly haunted penitentiary, but it also boasts an incredible historic site with the loveliest gardens imaginable.
Kingwood Center Gardens has 47 acres of adventure to offer to visitors. The house on this property and its surrounding grounds were built for Charles Kelley King, an executive with the Ohio Brass Company, in the 1920s.
King hired the Cleveland firm Pitkin & Mott to design his gardens and he enjoyed them for nearly 30 years before passing away childless in 1952. Following his death, this work of art opened as a public garden.
Advertisement
The site has a little bit of everything, but its greenhouse is a fan favorite.
Overflowing with beauty, greenhouses are heaven for nature lovers. The tropical house and succulent house are favorites at Kingwood, often inspiring visitors to swing by The Garden Shop to pick up supplies to try their own hand at gardening.
Advertisement
Outside of the greenhouses and mansion, the surrounding grounds change brilliantly with the seasons.
The seasonal displays in the gardens are a true treat, especially during the fall. These seasonal features are scattered amidst the flawlessly manicured outdoor architecture left behind by the King family.
King requested that his lovely home be used as a horticultural library following his death, and the foundation now operating his former home was happy to oblige. The estate features this, as well as administrative offices and a ground floor display that depicts how his home once looked.
The grounds can be toured by the public, and you never know what fascinating discovery awaits your visit.
Self-guided and group tours are both enriching and worthwhile. Open April through October, it costs only $5 to visit this brilliant landscape. Children 12 and under are free. You can find the estate's open hours here.
If you've never visited Kingwood Center Gardens, start planning a trip today!
