Landscaping an attraction at Kings Island
Kelly Obbie
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Down a gravel road off of Kings Island’s parking lot sits the park’s best and oldest kept secret.
In a small back lot just across from Great Wolf Lodge, rows of greenhouses sit filled with dozens of different plants that will eventually make their way to Kings Island’s main grounds and create some of the park’s most iconic landmarks.
When you step into one of the greenhouses, you’re immediately transported to a jungle with dozens of different colors and shapes. As roller coaster riders scream in the distance and you twist and turn through different shades of red, white, purple, yellow, orange and brown, you’ll eventually find Greenhouse Manager Ivan Booth caring for each plant, which is what he has done for the last 45 years.
“Working in landscaping or horticulture, I really enjoyed it all through high school,” Ivan said. “I enjoyed experimenting with plants to see if I could get them to root or whatever. I went to Eastern Kentucky University, and I majored in ornamental horticulture there, and I just found that I really liked that feel. It’s my passion and pretty much my hobby.”
Ivan has seen nearly every chapter of Kings Island’s history, and every plant. From the Liberty Bell to the clock to the mini Eiffel Tower, he says each plant starts from the seedling stage. The plant that makes pieces like the Liberty Bell is “alternanthera,” and it takes a lot of it to make the structures. The clock and date bed have about 30,000 plants, the Liberty Bell about 16-20,000 and the Eiffel Tower 10,000.
“My favorite memory is doing all of the various topiaries that we used to do,” Ivan said. “We’ve had Yogi, Boo-Boo, Fred, Dino, Godzilla, the clock, date bed, compass, thermometer. I enjoyed all the aspects of getting those ready to go out in the park.”
The greenhouse property is filled with pieces of King Island’s past and present. A large structure near the greenhouses now holds towers of bagged dirt and ice pellets, but at one point it housed the horses used for sleigh rides in WinterFest, and you can still see the stable dividers in the structure when you walk in. The stable sections that once held horses now have all kinds of goodies, like some of the cabins from WinterFest and even a prop, old-fashioned propeller plane.
Although nearly all of the plants make it to the main park at some point, there’s one group of plants that most guests will never see, and it has been at Kings Island for decades. Since 1981 Ivan has cared for a group of cacti in one of the greenhouses, and the plants now reach the ceiling of the greenhouse.
“I sort of consider it like a mascot of the greenhouse now,” Ivan said. “They were going to do a Western display down in the Rivertown area, and that didn’t pan out so to speak, so I gathered a couple of cactus that was left over and put them in large pots, and they’ve been growing ever since.”
So the next time you snap a family photo in front of the Liberty Bell or check the time on the giant clock, remember that just up the road in a secluded group of greenhouses Ivan Booth and his team have been making it possible for over 40 years.