| Washington Park is considered to be one of Denver's most beautiful parks, 165 acres in size, acquired during the years 1899 to 1908. In this park is the city's largest flower garden. Washington Park Garden contains 54 large flower beds in an informal arrangement with paths which lead the visitor through it. Flower color there begins with iris and peonies, and other spring-blooming perennials. Around Decoration Day, approximately 25,000 annual plants are planted here. These are only some of the nearly 170,000 flowers raised in the City Park greenhouses which supply flowers for the entire park system. During the summer there is a vast and brilliant display of color, lasting until heavy frosts come, bringing many residents and visitors into the garden to enjoy it. The flowers are planted according to a carefully planned arrangement to present a balanced composition of colors and shapes. The arrangement is completely redesigned every year.Near the large garden is an exact replica of the Martha Washington garden at Mt. Vernon, Virginia, constructed here in 1926. It is set in the park so that even the wall of the greenhouses in the original garden is represented by a stone retaining wall from which the visitor steps down into the garden. The arrangement of box hedges, including the little informally shaped areas, originally designed by George Washington himself, are successfully duplicated by the use of lodense privet, since box is not hardy in Denver. Early blooming perennials and summer annuals give this garden color over a long season.Near the Mt. Vernon garden stands a scion of the old Washington Elm under which Washington took command of the Continental Army in 1775 in Cambridge, Mass. This scion is surrounded by an ornamental fence and is described on a bronze plaque.Located at south Downing Street & east Louisiana Avenue, this park features a recreation center with indoor pool, bicycle/pedestrian pathway, boating, a crushed granite jogging path, fitness course, fishing, horseshoe pit, indoor pool, lawn bowling/croquet, soccer field, tennis courts, lighted tennis courts, two playgrounds, four picnic sites, boathouse pavilion, two lakes, 1/2 basketball court, two major flower gardens, and a youth fishing pond. |
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