Gardens for the courthouse garden were created in the late 1980s by Baltimore County landscape architect Avery Harden and Wolfgang Oehme, FASLA. Oehme, a transplanted German, began work for the Baltimore County Department of Parks in 1957. In 1977, he and James van Sweden co-founded Oehme, van Sweden & Associates.

Oehme and Harden collaborated on the courthouse garden design, a space of winding paths, plant-covered slopes, mature trees and a sustainable mix of bushes and flowers that appealed to butterflies and birds and bloomed at different intervals.

Last year, an urban design team recommended ripping out the garden, which perturbed the local garden clubs.

Mr. Oehme told the Baltimore Sun he was ?EUR??,,????'??flabbergasted?EUR??,,????'?? about any suggestion of destroying the gardens. Mr. Oehme is known for taking a proprietary interest in the gardens, including weeding them himself and getting garden club members to help.

This June, transportation consultants and city planners held meetings with residents, merchants and county officials to develop ideas on making Towson more pedestrian friendly. They recommended that, at minimum, the iron fence around the garden in front of the courthouse be removed to make it more accessible for pedestrians.

A county spokesman said more access points to the garden may be warranted, but indicated there is no intention of making major renovations to the gardens.