Still a Few Secret Gardens Left

I love that in a smaller city like Cincinnati I can still find new gardens- gardens that are still relatively unknown by others in town. When I tell my friends about my discoveries it is like sharing a garden secret. One such place is Rowe Arboretum in the Village of Indian Hill.

Rowe Arboretum was started by Stanley M. Rowe, Sr. and his wife Dorothy in 1926. With many acres resting atop a ridge line, the Rowes, particularly Dorothy, saw an opportunity to transform the landscape by planting trees. Over the years, the ridge that was once grazing and farmland, took on a new life.

Their first planting consisted of a few thousand seedlings from the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Department of Forestry. Red Oaks, the European Larch, White Pines, and Scotch Pines were among the first trees to call the Rowe’s ridge home. I read that the Rowes accumulated four to five thousand different types of trees and shrubs.

Today, the arboretum is about 9 acres and the collection focuses on conifers. Here you see just a sampling of the collection. To give you a true feeling of what the arboretum has to offer I will return many times and share my visits, here, with you.