Duncan Garden is a classical European Renaissance-style garden comprising three acres of the park. The garden includes manicured turf areas and vast displays of colorful annual bedding plants.
The most dramatic of the gardens in Manito Park is Duncan Garden, created in a classical European Renaissance style. The garden encompasses three acres and includes manicured turf areas and vast displays of colorful annual bedding plants.
Duncan Garden offers abundant paths for a marvelous slow-pace walk among the plants and is a popular location for weddings and photography.
Weddings and wedding photography in the gardens is by reservation only. Please call 509.363.5455 or email us at parkopsreservations@spokanecity.org, if you have any questions.
The present site of Duncan Garden was discovered when Charles Balzer, Parks Superintendent at the time, found a 7-foot cave dug by his son, which uncovered, to his delight, the perfect topsoil. This topsoil would then be excavated and transported to other parts of the garden, leaving a sunken landscape that would soon become Duncan Garden. John Duncan took over as Superintendent from 1910 to 1942, bringing incredible improvements to Manito and the Parks Department as a whole. In recognition of his contributions, the “Sunken Garden” was renamed “Duncan Garden” in his honor.
Since its creation in the early 1900s, Duncan Garden has undergone numerous changes. Originally, the garden extended only slightly beyond the present-day Davenport Fountain, where a grape-covered arbor surrounded by roses was built in the 1920s. In the mid-1900s, the garden was expanded to its current size, and the roses were removed to make way for more annual plants. Around this time, in 1956, Davenport Fountain was donated to Manito Park by Mrs. Louis M. Davenport in memory of her husband, Louis, who had served on the Spokane Parks Board.
In 1995, the Parks Department closed the garden to fully renovate and reshape the beds to their present form. Throughout these transitions, the garden has adopted a formal design structure characterized by bilateral symmetry and a cohesive annual color scheme, reminiscent of Italy’s Isola Bella, France’s Versailles, and England’s Hampton Court Palace. Manito Gardeners spend months creating the annual design each year, and in mid-May, the entire staff assists in planting tens of thousands of annual plants.
The City of Choice
509.625.6200
parks@spokanecity.org
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
