Elizabeth Park

Elizabeth Park covers 102 acres and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The land belonged to the financier Charles M. Pond, who left his estate to the City of Hartford in 1894 on the condition that it be named for his late wife, Elizabeth. The city took possession in 1897 and hired Frederick Law Olmsted for the initial design and landscaping.

The border between Hartford and West Hartford has shifted over the years, so one of Hartford's largest parks now sits mostly inside West Hartford. It is still owned by the City of Hartford and is maintained jointly with the Elizabeth Park Conservancy, which runs garden, tree and history tours, workshops, greenhouse shows and a summer concert series.

On the East Lawn, designed in 1896, the Sunrise Overlook looks toward downtown Hartford and catches the early light that gives it its name.

The Rose Garden, created in 1904 by Theodore Wirth, covers 2.5 acres and is the oldest municipal rose garden in the United States, with about 15,000 bushes of 800 varieties. It is named for Helen S. Kaman, the first president of the Conservancy, and is among the top attractions in Connecticut.

Around it are seven other specialty gardens. The Eddy Rock Garden, first planted in 1915 and inspired by alpine gardens in Austria, went through three restorations, the last in 2016. The Heritage Rose Garden is shaped like a rosette with five petal-shaped districts, and the Perennial Garden has more than 1,600 plants in eight beds sorted into warm and cool colors.

The four century-old Lord and Burnham greenhouses start plants from seed and cuttings, force tulips for the annual greenhouse show and house tropical and exotic plants.