Woodward Park, Botanical garden and urban park in Tulsa, United States
Woodward Park is a 45-acre public park, botanical garden and arboretum between 21st and 24th Streets, east of South Peoria Avenue in Tulsa. It holds specialty gardens for spring flowers, tropical plants and cacti, plus the Tulsa Rose Garden, the Tulsa Garden Center, the Tulsa Arboretum and the Linnaeus Teaching Garden. G. Burton Fox designed the grounds, where construction began in November 1933.
Tulsa acquired the land in 1909, but faced a four-year legal battle with Helen Woodward, a Creek Indian, who contested the sale. This dispute shaped the park's origins and early development.
The Anne Hathaway Herb Garden began in 1939, when resident Jewel Huffman and the Anne Hathaway Herb Garden Club planted a formal herb garden named for Shakespeare's wife. The club tended it until 1982, then handed it to the Tulsa Parks Department. Plantings have included geraniums, sages, mints, basil, lemon thyme, rosemary, marjoram, oregano and tarragon.
The park lies between 21st and 24th Streets, east of South Peoria Avenue and west of South Rockford Street, about 3 km from downtown Tulsa. The rose garden's five terraces are built into a hillside with stone walls and steps, so expect slopes rather than level paths. The Linnaeus Teaching Garden occupies 1.5 acres within the grounds.
The Tulsa Rose Garden was begun in 1935 as a Works Progress Administration project, with its five terraces built by manual labor and horses. The garden was hit by rose rosette virus, which killed almost two-thirds of its plants by April 2014.
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