South Park

The 155-acre South Park was designed in 1894 as an arboretum, with more than 2,300 types of trees, shrubs and plant life, and room for a large conservatory building, now home to the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens.

Olmsted originally designed this park as an arboretum and there are still more than 200 species of trees in the park. We are working with the Botanical Gardens to create a Victorian arboretum so historic and extensive that it becomes the southern anchor of horticultural activity with the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Niagara Parks Commission School of Horticulture to the north. For example, we have replaced the muddy, rutted entrance of the park with a tree-lined sidewalk. We have installed park signage here and throughout the park system. We have published a walking tour book of the perimeter arboretum trees and are in the process of restoring the Wetland Garden to match the beauty of the Shrub Garden that we restored in the 1990s.

Click here for a pdf of the walking tour.

Click here for a pdf of South Park history Olmsted papers.

Points Of Interest:

• Bog Garden
• The Conservatory, Botanical Gardens, and Arboretum
• South Park Lake
• 9-Hole Golf Course

Amenities:

(1) 9-Hole Golf Course