The kind of place I wish I had nearby growing up! Bring your family, your date, or the people you want to introduce to nature or local history. And especially bird&insect photographers. It's free! You might know it only as an event venue, but there's: * Nice walking trails and farm country views. * A few segments would count as hiking if you want to introduce somebody! * Creekside access in the woods. Fiddling around a natural creek is a formative experience * A selection of beautiful older trees that survived from colonial times * Including a massive ancient white oak, Maryland's state tree and quite rare now. If you've never seen a "big tree" in person this is a must-see. It has presence. * Restored buildings and history displays * A resident ambassador owl. Go closer to dusk to see him active * Restored natural meadows (great macro photography) * Examples of bee keeping, different types of gardening, etc. Lots to play / do / learn, or for us older folks, walking around and taking photos. A couple of notes: * hours on maps are for the venue, the grounds are actually open dawn-to-dusk * the hiking is pretty mild but there's a lot to see. * alltrails isn't accurate for many of the paths, but everything is really well signed (or grab the map from their own website) * if you're doing the full circuit of trails, wear those ankle-support shoes/boots - it might seem silly for the easy terrain, but the angle of the farm trails is "hard" in sneakers, and you'll appreciate that support. Enjoy it! Another Howard County gem. read more

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Such a wonderful place that I never knew existed until this weekend when We attended a wedding here. Actually, I officiated. So, I got to check out the grounds around the main building before the bride and groom arrived for rehearsal. They have a wonderful wandering Garden with Fountains and water features. I could sit by a loud water feature for hours. The wedding was in the garden, but the facility had prepared the Veranda in case the rain didn't clear up. In addition to the new main structure, they have Historical buildings and Summer camps. read more

Howard County Conservancy - Summer Camps Near Me - Woodstock, Maryland

Great place for a walk/hike with family and friends. There is plenty for kids to do including a play area, goats and an owl to visit. I enjoy walking down to the stream while bird watching all the hawks and falcons. They have a beautiful garden and something is always in bloom. I love the large wooden barn on site too! read more

Howard County Conservancy - Sunset over the barn - Summer Camps Near Me - Woodstock, Maryland

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Howard County Conservancy We'll walk you to see the biggest beaver dam in Howard County Conservancy. Are you excited? Let's walk with us to the Wetlands trail! First you walk from the parking lot to the old barn, you can see it's located by the entrance roadside, and once you get there, walk down the trail, and keep going. You'll be in sort of intersection on your left but we won't turn left here, keep walking and you'll see a walking path *watch on your right with a (ruined) stone gate alike. Walk across the stone gate, turn left and walk for around 10-15 foot steps and turn right, and keep walking until you'll see a sign of small pond on your left, then you're on the right path. You can walk closer to the pond through the short path on your left (that's what we did) and watched any movement around the water, and we found a turtle from here! Or, you can continue walking down the previous path until you see a bridge on your left. From the bridge, you'll see the biggest beaver dam was created along the water line. How cool is that? Another coolest thing was, we bumped into THE BEAVER!! Aaaahhhh!?! Yeeessss!?! We explored and walked back to the trail and found wineberries patch and mulbery tree, so we stopped there and enjoy the berries! *check your left while walking up the hill. Along the walk, we also found A Story Walk, a Demonstration Garden next to Nature Play Scene, a sleeping Eastern Screech Owl, goats house and chickens house. That's a wrap for our good hike today! It was good since the ground was dry and allowed us to explore more around the wetlands 10520 Old Frederick Rd, Woodstock, MD 21163 Daily 9AM-3PM, Sunday Closed inside the Gudelesky Environmental Education Center, with water fountains next to it. some stone trails/path in Clark Honor Garden are accessible both for strollers and wheelchairs. The grassy trail/path are in moderate to strenuous level for both. parking lot around the entrance road ℹ howardnature.org #beaverdam #howardcountyconservancy #hcconservancy #preservefootprints read more

Howard County Conservancy - Demonstration Garden - Summer Camps Near Me - Woodstock, Maryland

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I love this place!! This review is based on my cousins wedding I just attended. This venue is sneaky! Like super cute. The scene is beautiful especially when the weather is working in your favor. The package she got was open bar for the whole nice and buffet line meals. Her guest list was 125 people but there were a few empty seats ,which is to be expected because people randomly cancel their invite last min. But the deck provided such a gorgeous view for picture taking. The photographer took the bride and groom into the woods to take more wedding shots. There is a huge dance floor in the ballroom for dancing. Food was good and drink were good! This wedding a was a hit and the staff? We're more than accommodating! We enjoyed their assistance throughout the whole event! If I could have done a big wedding? I definitely would have done it here! My cousin chose well! read more

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We visited with family on a visit to Baltimore. Took a nice hike and saw the owls and bee apiary. Saw many bluebirds, sparrows and a soaring bald eagle! My son enjoys bird watching here. A most pleasant experience. read more

Best sunsets in hoco. Cool trails. The have a real owl too.......................................,,,,,...yuuuuuuuuuuuuu read more

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I got married here in the summer of 2011, and everything was pretty much awesome. It is not a standard wedding locale, but it's a perfect one. The price is agreeable, the gardens are lovely (and space is fun if you want to have an outdoor wedding and offer games), the center is bright and airy and often decorated with local art, and the people I dealt with were all very helpful. read more

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A great place in Howard County to take a walk, explore nature, see an owl (during the day!) and just generally chill out. Plenty of parking, and easy to get to, right at the end of Rt 29 north. I love coming to the Conservancy on weekends to unwind and walk the trails. Some of the trails are a bit steep, but it's a great way to get your leg muscles working. It's also chock full of local history tidbits, especially with preservation and conservation issues. There's a community garden with individual plots, for Howard County residents. I've seen people working on their plots, and they seem to enjoy it. I haven't been to one of the events held by the Conservancy yet, although I plan to be at the meteor shower watching later this year. read more

Beautiful place. Lots of space. Perfect for your wedding, if you love the outdoors.

I got married here last month. Pros: The venue is beautiful, which you will immediately see. The combination of the barn, garden, and open reception space overlooking the beautiful green grounds will allow for some amazing pictures. There's also an owl that you can rent (we didn't). The price is very reasonable - under $3k for all three spaces. The artwork in the reception space was charming every time we visited and during our wedding. Cons: The Pros, you'll see for yourself very quickly. The Cons you won't, so I want to make sure to explain them here so you fully understand what this decision will mean for you. In short, the venue is completely inflexible. About anything. In fact, the people there are so inflexible that you can't help but wonder if they're inflexible just for the sake of it, or perhaps because they like to envision the bride and groom pulling out all of their hair. Denise, the events coordinator that you will interface with, seems pleasant enough at first and I'm sure that in her normal life she is a lovely woman. But, you will find that any appeals to logic, empathy, or even basic humanity fall on deaf ears with her and the rest of her cronies. Any requests to change the contract, even for common sense courtesies, will be denied. One example was that we wanted to add in a clause that allowed for us to non-destructively attach things to beams in the barn. Agreed to verbally, but when we asked to put it in the contract? Denied. Adding a very standard Force Majuere clause? Denied. For any requested changes, you'll get the response: "our contract was written by an attorney and approved by our board of trustees" and that the process to change the contract is too cumbersome. To us, it felt like more of an indication that the people there couldn't be bothered by it. Other examples: * We asked if they had a podium we could use. They said yes. We expressed our excitement and mentioned that we wanted to use it in the barn. Then we were told that the podium had to stay in the reception space (even though the barn was between 100 and 200 feet away. Fail. * Similarly, we wanted to use one of the tables from the reception space for table cards. We wanted to put it 5 feet outside the reception space. But, we were told again that nothing could be brought outside the reception space. * There's hay in the barn and we wanted to use it as a prop. We were told that if we touched it or tried to move it, they'd melt our faces off. Or essentially something like that. * You'll be subject to fines if you can't clean the place out entirely before 12 PM. They have someone at the venue to make sure of it. * You can't get into the reception space before 3 PM. Our wedding planner arrived early and needed to use the restroom and was almost turned away by the staff. With no events going on in the space, and no one in there, our vendors were still forced to wait outside until the clock hit exactly 3 PM. If you've ever seen Meet the Parents, where Greg has to needlessly wait at the gate while no one else is around, you can picture what I'm talking about. At the end of the day, weddings are not a priority for this venue. Their funding/business model doesn't depend on it at all. The money they make from weddings is a "nice to have" at most. Recognizing that their space is beautiful and having received requests for weddings there, they made the option available. But, it's clear that they believe that alone to have been a major favor for anyone who decides to go for it. As a result, there is no incentive, nor desire, to accommodate any requests from the bride and groom at all. It becomes very evident that they could take or leave your business, putting all of the leverage squarely on their side. If we didn't have a wedding planner to help us navigate all of their arbitrary rules, I don't know what we would have done. Certainly, I think that coordination of all of the vendors to set up and especially to tear down, such that you comply with the venue's restrictions, without a wedding planner would add considerable stress to your day. If you're going to go with this place, just make sure you truly understand the level of frustration you and your vendors will experience. A wedding planner is a must. And so is a punching bag. read more

We had our wedding at the Howard County Conservancy in August 2014 and loved it. Ceremony in the Montjoy Barn was beautiful and the Gudelsky Center was perfect and easy for the reception. The only downside is having to be wrapped up on the earlier side (11 PM). Would still highly recommend it if you're looking for an affordable outdoor venue with the additional option of an inside space. read more