Highland Botanical Park
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The Highland Botanical Park is an arboretum, or tree garden. The Administrative Park Office is located at 171 Reservoir Avenue Rochester, New York,USA. In 1888, nurserymen George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry endowed the Rochester community with 20 acres (81,000 m²) of land which would become Highland Park, one of the nation's first municipal arboretums. Highland Park is one of many parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. This park, although meticulously planned, was designed with the purpose of retaining a very natural appearance. The park's famous lilac collection was started by horticulturist John Dunbar in 1892 with 20 varieties, some of which were descendants of slips of native Balkan Mountain flowers that were carried to the new world by early colonists. Today, Highland Park features 1,200 lilac shrubs, Japanese Maples, 35 varieties of sweet-smelling magnolias, a barberry collection, a rock garden with dwarf evergreens, 700 varieties of rhododendron, azaleas, mountain laurel, andromeda, spring bulbs and wildflowers and a large number of trees. The park's pansy bed features 10,000 plants, designed into an oval floral "carpet" with a new pattern each year. Highland Park also has a natural amphitheater, sunken garden and a conservatory greenhouse. A statue of Frederick Douglass overlooks the amphitheater.
The park occupies most of a glacial moraine, although it does share the hill with a water reservoir and Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.
The Highland Park also hosts Rochester's annual Lilac Festival in May, which is the largest festival of its kind in North America and draws spectators from all over the globe.
