Holden Forests and Gardens

Two Campuses, One Comprehensive Vision

Holden Forests & Gardens, the nation’s twelfth-largest public garden, was formed in 2014 by the merger of the 10-acre Cleveland Botanical Garden and the Holden Arboretum, a 3,600-acre landscape of old-growth and post-agricultural forest, wetland, and cultivated gardens located 25 miles east. In 2021, Holden engaged NBW to lead a comprehensive plan unifying the two campuses within a single long-term vision. The plan translates the organization’s strategic plan into a framework for phased implementation and provides design concepts to guide capital projects.

At the more urban Botanical Garden site, the plan focused on opening a portion of the site to the surrounding University Circle community, upgrading the glasshouses for sustainability and education, and improving access to retail and dining for non-ticket holders. At the more rural Arboretum, where the scale and ecological richness of the land offered a different set of opportunities, NBW organized the visitor experience around six distinct landscape zones: Coniferous, Pollinator, Cultivated, Ericaceous, Lakefront, and Meadow.

A proposed new visitor center near the Arboretum’s Corning Lake anchors a sequence that also includes a new horticulture building, a maintenance operations hub, and an expanded science and research center. Six new loop trails of under a mile each, designed for all ages and abilities, radiate from a central trailhead bosque, or circle of trees. The plan also envisions a new arrival experience that frames views of the lake and brings the site’s diverse ecologies to the central core.

Linking the two sites through programming and a shared mission to connect people with the wonder, beauty, and value of trees and plants, the plan proposes strategies that bring the Arboretum’s ecological breadth to visitors who typically encounter only the Botanical Garden. A cyclical seasonal planting strategy supports year-round horticultural interest and expanded winter programming, while shared stormwater, maintenance, and operations frameworks connect the two sites’ physical infrastructure.