FROM BLEAK TO BEAUTIFUL
Field of Cosmos adorns site of former juvenile prison
The sight was simply too intriguing for Rich Hay to pass up again. He’d already driven by once that morning on his way into Dublin from Delaware along Route 745.
So on a recent Wednesday afternoon, Hay pulled his black sedan to the side of the road and got out, with phone in hand, to take some pictures.
Thousands of pink, purple and white Cosmos splayed out before him. The flowers’ vibrant petals dotting the landscape seemed almost foreign against the typical autumn foliage, the murky Scioto River and overcast sky. An unseasonably warm breeze rustled the blossoms alongside bristly brush.
“I just had to stop and look,” Hay said. “It’s pretty incredible, isn’t it?”
The field of Cosmos is on the site of the old Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility in southern Delaware County. The juvenile prison, at Home Road and Route 745, was demolished last year.
The land is now owned by the city of Columbus and will eventually be home to a water plant. As part of the contract to demolish the buildings the contractor was asked to plant the Cosmos.
Cosmos, according to flora folklore, symbolize order and harmony (perhaps a nod to the land’s former function.) However, the flower also has been used as a symbol of tranquility, peace, innocence and love.
Josh Hollar and his daughter, Kennedy, 4, check out the huge Cosmos field blooming at Home Road and Route 745 in southern Delaware County. The field was once a state juvenile prison, but those buildings were demolished last year. The land is now owned by the city of Columbus, which plans to put a water plant on the site. The contractor was asked to plant the Cosmos. “It's beautiful, and it won't last long,” said Hollar, who lives nearby.
Legend has it that Spanish priests abroad on missionary trips saw the flowers and believed their stately and symmetrical petals mirrored the order and harmony of the rest of the universe, thus the name “Cosmos” – a Greek word meaning “world order.”
The city is planning to establish a prairie around the future water plant, said Robin Davis, spokeswoman for Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther. The Cosmos were planted so the area would look nice for the first year while the prairie gets established.
“Without the flowers, it looks like a field of weeds because the native plants don’t really look nice until the following year or two,” Davis said.
Cosmos are an annual, so they won’t compete with the native wildflowers that the city planted. Davis said the flowers will continue to reseed themselves for the next few years until they get overtaken by the native prairie plants and flowers.
With winter’s frost looming, the Cosmos will die with the the change of season. But this unexpected place has become a bright spot for many in a year that has been trying in myriad ways.
Crowds have admired the Cosmos from near and far, especially around sunset when their bright colors are illuminated.
Josh Hollar and his 4-year-old daughter, Kennedy, went to visit the Cosmos field on a recent October evening. He held her up to get a better view of the blooms. Her butterfly leggings matched the field’s colors, and she picked a white Cosmos for the road.
“It’s beautiful,” Hollar said, “and it won’t last long.” shendrix@dispatch.com @sheridan120