Garden Jubilee puts spotlight on Springfield’s colorful Snyder Park attraction

It was once the steady, verdant green of a golf course, but Snyder Park was exploding in color Saturday as the Ohio State University Extension and Clark County Master Gardener Volunteers celebrated the park’s Gardens & Arboretum at their annual Garden Jubilee.

Visitors dodged a few raindrops as they took tours of the gardens, and children used magnifying glasses to check out busy insects on the many varieties of plants and flowers.

Elaine and Brian Frock of Springboro said it was obvious the amount of work and skill that went into the gardens.

“I don’t remember it being this beautiful,” Elaine Frock said. “They’ve really done a nice job.”

Credit: Bill Lackey

Credit: Bill Lackey

The annual Garden Jubilee included live music, food trucks, door prizes, vendors, police and fire booths, plus face painting, a scavenger hunt and other kids’ activities.

Frock said in addition to the gardens, the booths were valuable too.

“We were interesting in being better educated to know how to recycle, and the lady up there really informed us,” she said. “It was nice, we got educated.”

The Snyder Park Gardens and Arboretum includes several different types of gardens — the “garden of eatin” for edible plants, a perennial garden, trial gardens, areas full of pollinators, and more.

Credit: Bill Lackey

The park has some history too, incorporating artifacts from Springfield’s old Memorial Hall that was demolished in 2010, and some bricks from the foundry floor of International Harvester as part of a pathway.

The public can visit the gardens any time of the year during daylight hours at 1900 Park Road in Springfield. For more information, visit https://shorturl.at/n6uLL or www.facebook.com/spgaohio.

Amanda Kempf said she had been to Snyder Park, but not to these gardens.

“We didn’t know this was here,” Kempf said. “It was a fun family event. We got to see different plants, and the kids had different activities to do.”