Woodward Park Complex: A Gem of a City Park

As Karen and I are planning any of our trips we always look for what is going to be the best bang for our buck.  What could be better than free?  So we placed the Tulsa Garden Center and the Linnaeus Teaching Garden on our must see list while visiting Tulsa.  What we did not know until we looked up the directions to those places is that both of them could be found in the Woodward Park Complex.  What we also did not know is that this park also has a rose garden, herb garden, and a rock garden to boot.Woodward Park Complex is a wonderful place for a stroll.  I was very impressed with how well kept the grounds were until I looked up at some of the trees, which had massive parts of missing for what seemed like no apparent reasons.  As I was walking around taking pictures of the park a lady called out to me, I do not know if she thought I was making preparations to cut down some more trees or what, but she did not seem happy as she was walking towards me.  Thinking that I must be doing something wrong or not following proper park etiquette I walked towards her trying to give a big sincere smile to disarm the situation.  When she asked me why I was taking pictures, I told her about my wife and our website and that we like to travel and write down what we see not only for our own record, but to help anybody that might stumble upon our website looking for places to go and things to see.  She was excited about what I was doing and then told me about how the neighborhood is pretty upset by the terrible job the city has done in hacking up what seemed to me to be some very nice trees.  I do not know why they cut those trees the way that they did, but after she pointed it out to me I started to notice several trees with odd missing limbs.  Hopefully the city of Tulsa will clean it up because it was the only dark spot in what is otherwise a beautiful park.After seeing the nice herb garden and rock garden by the area where we parked Karen and I decided to see what was on the other side.  When we got there we were amazed by their very large rose garden.  Upon learning more about the park I found that there are close to 5,000 rose plants and nearly 250 varieties.  The rose garden area was well taken care of with fountains and smooth gravel walking paths.While the rose, herb, and rock gardens were nice to look at they paled in comparison to what lay in store for us at the Linnaeus Gardens and the Tulsa Garden Center.  The Tulsa Garden Center is located in a beautiful Italian Renaissance villa with a glass house full of succulents and other types of plants.  However while the Tulsa Garden Center was interesting the centerpiece of the park to us was the Linnaeus Teaching Garden.  While the Linnaeus Teaching Garden is not very large it is extremely well done.  In fact after walking through it I was shocked that it was free Karen and I have paid to go to much larger gardens that were not as beautiful as the Linnaeus Teaching Garden.  This Garden area had beautiful cascading waterfall that flowed into a large koi pond.  There were a large variety of plants all around the pond and a small green house with some beautiful orchids among other plants.  It was just a very peaceful walk through the garden that I would like to take again.Karen and I would highly recommend spending time at the Woodward Park Complex.  First of all it is one the friendliest places on your wallet or purse and it could easily be a place that charges an admission.  It was a beautiful place at the time of our visit and that was after a very hot and dry summer so I imagine that during the spring or wetter summer this park is just magnificent.Woodward Park Complex
Located at 2435 South Peoria, Tulsa
Hours of Operation For the Tulsa Garden Center Tuesday through Saturday 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and the Linnaeus Teaching Garden which is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and Sundays 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. from Mother’s Day through August
Cost as of this Posting- Both the Tulsa Garden Center and the Linnaeus Teaching Garden are free as well as the rest of the Woodward Park Complex.
For more information visit their website at http://www.tulsagardencenter.com/