Garden Walks - Victorian Village - Columbus Ohio

Last weekend we were visiting in Columbus, Ohio and our wonderful host took us to a couple of garden walks, one in a renovated old urban neighborhood called 'Victorian Village' and the second one in one of the nearby suburbs called 'Westerville'. It was very interesting to see both, small urban and bigger suburban gardens all in one day.

Victorian Village is part of the Short North neighborhood. The Victorian village homes were built in late 1800 to 1920s and represent a good sample of Victorian era architecture. You can read about the history of this area at History of the Neighborhood and Architectural Styles.

They are having a Tour Of the Homes Event Sunday, September 20, 2009 from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (Details at tour-of-the-homes )

Okay, now about the garden walk. I love to see urban gardens; they are always smaller and require more imagination. The first thing I noticed was the use of space on the side walk. Almost all of the homes turned the public area of the side walk into a garden full of annuals, perennials and even big pots of tropical plants. The backyards were small and mainly shady with at least one big tree as the focal point. Couple of the yards even had a small pond incorporated in their garden.

A lot of them used vertical space in the garden to create drama and interest. In thes pictures, potted plants with tall elephant ears were placed on tall posts.








One of the homes on the tour included a guest house at the end of the garden. The guest house was open and we had a tour of the inside. A great place to stay if you are visiting Columbus. You can see more pictures of the guest house at
Guest House

This post is getting long, I will tell you about the Westerville walk in the next post.
Thank you again to our host for taking us on the walk.