Garven Woodland Gardens

Garven Woodland Gardens around this time of the year is the best time to go if you’re planning on going at all. It has tons of flowers that are blooming and an annual national public garden day. In which gardens from around the nation participate in this amazing event. You will participate in learning how to care for you’re own plants or just come along for the ride to view all the new plants that the garden is planting on this day.

  Garven Gardens began as a petite, delicate woman's dream of transforming her 210-acre wooded peninsula on Lake Hamilton into a world-class botanical garden. And it transformed into one of the prettiest and most scenic places in Hot Springs Arkansas. It has hundreds of thousands types of flowers and plants planted along the whole 210 acres.  Everywhere you look is something beautiful; nothing about this place is boring.

Verna Cook Garven is the lady that owns the 210 acres of land.

She made a wise decision in 1985 to donate the land under a trust agreement to the University Of Arkansas School Of Architecture. She maintained control of the property and continued to develop it until her death in 1993.

            After her death when the U of A department of landscape architecture, a division of the School of Architecture, began the task of documenting every plant species and the quantity of each. Construction on what is now visible in the Gardens began in 2000 with a much-celebrated grand opening held in April 2002.

            Garvan Woodland Gardens is an example of The Natural State at its best: a canopy of pines reaching skyward providing protection for flowers and plants a like, it’s also along the 4 ½ miles of wooded shoreline, and rocky inclines that remind us of the surrounding Ouachita Mountains. The Gardens are a beautifully crafted response to those who may have doubted one determined woman's vision for a world-class botanical garden.

      There’s various of attractions inside the gardens including: Paul W. Klipsch Amphitheater ,Anthony Chapel, ,Evans Children's Adventure Garden ,Garden of Pine Wind ,Verna Cook Garvan Pavilion ,The Ellipse ,Three Sisters of Amity Daffodil Hill ,Old Brick Hill ,Weyerhaeuser Bonsai Garden ,Dierks Promenade ,Edmondson Great Lawn ,and Joy Manning Scott Full Moon Bridge.

Some of the prettiest views along the gardens are from the Old Brick Hill, and Dierks Promenade. The dynamic architectural structures to the majestic botanical landscapes, Garvan Woodland Gardens offers breathtaking sights (and fantastic photo opportunities!) at every turn. I promise you that you won’t get bored if you visit the beautiful gardens of Hot Springs Arkansas. Entry fee is 10 dollars a person. So come on down!

By: Amanda Poole