Touring Pittsburgh’s Community Flower Gardens

This column usually focuses on remote places to hike around Western Pennsylvania, but there are beautiful outdoor destinations to see in the heart of Pittsburgh. A biking tour of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s community flower gardens is one way to simultaneously enjoy nature and explore the uniqueness of Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods.

Each May and June, the Conservancy plants 62 flower gardens in Pittsburgh with help from many, many volunteers. There are a total of 130 such Conservancy gardens around the region. Each is uniquely designed for its location, with a variety of perennial and annual flowers, as well as shrubs.

Some are traditional flower gardens, two are raised and ADA-accessible, some are pollinator gardens, and several are designed to play a substantial role in stormwater management, including one designed to annually capture a million gallons of stormwater.

If you are a biker and want to learn more about the Conservancy’s gardens or you’re just looking for a fun urban excursion, you can explore the gardens and other greening projects on one of four bike routes. These routes traverse the South Side-Downtown, North Side and East End, and a longer 27-mile route utilizes some existing bike trails, such as the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, and includes 28 Conservancy flower gardens along the route, including plantings in Millvale, Baldwin and Homestead.

Bikers can customize the length of any of the routes to suit their interests. The tour through Downtown Pittsburgh includes the Grant and First Street pollinator garden, which showcases an array of pollinator-friendly plants and their benefits. The route also can include colorful summer hanging flower baskets and year-round planters.

For more information about the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and to view each self-guided bike route, visit Waterlandlife.org/Explore.