Since 1895, Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens has been Columbus’ escape hatch to the tropics — a Victorian glass palace of biomes set in a 88-acre park just east of downtown.
Inside the historic John F. Wolfe Palm House (home to a fiddle-leaf fig planted in 1895), visitors wander from Himalayan mountains to a Pacific island, from a rainforest canopy to a desert of sculptural cacti. Outside, botanical gardens, a children’s garden and the Wells Barn’s farm-to-table teaching gardens spread across the grounds.
The Conservatory also holds the continent’s largest private collection of Dale Chihuly glass — art woven through the plantings like permanent blossoms.
Winter in Ohio is long. The Conservatory is Columbus’ beloved answer: summer, kept under glass.
