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Elizabeth Park Rose Garden
Photo courtesy of JGagnon
Rose (public) Garden
Listing last updated on Wed Dec 2024
1555 Asylum Avenue West Hartford, Connecticut 06117-2804 United States
860-231-9443 [Information]
Mailing address:
Friends of Elizabeth Park
P.O. Box 370361
West Hartford, CT 06137
The garden is organized into sections:
Main Garden - West, North, South and East sections.
North Garden - East and West sections.
South Garden - East and West sections.
There are 224 beds, not including the peripheral beds that ring the garden and separate it into sections.
Each bed densely is planted, usually with a single rose cultivar although a few beds have two cultivars. Beds contain around two dozen plants of each cultivar although the numbers vary according to the size of the bed. Some cultivars repeat in different sections so that about 60 beds are duplicates (three of Love, four of Tiffany, etc.).
Thirteen of the beds are planted with AARS test roses, three of these being devoted to test climbers. Two of the beds are planted with Bailey Nursery test roses.
Three of the beds contain assorted Griffith Buck hybrids, although not all plants are labeled.
Eight of the beds contain "Mixed Roses", but individual plants are mostly unlabeled, and two beds contain "Mixed Polyanthas", also mostly unlabeled.
One bed contains assorted Brownell roses, again individual plants are mostly not labeled.
The peripheral beds are planted with a many climbers and ramblers, usually a single plant of a particular cultivar although some cultivars repeat throughout the garden. There are also many individual hybrid teas, floribundas and shrubs in the peripheral beds. While some plants in the peripheral beds are labeled with tags (look closely), many are not.
A map of the garden is located at the entrance to the west section of the Main Garden. This map does not list cultivars in the peripheral beds.. Plants listed in the HelpMeFind.com database are from an inventory made in the fall of 2008.
Roses are in bloom beginning about the second week of June. The Friends of Elizabeth Park sponsors a weekend festival at the garden that usually occurs during the third weekend in June.
From The Rose: an Encyclopedia of North American Roses, Rosarians, and Rose Lore, by Sean McCann (photo opposite page 87): "Elizabeth Park in Hartford, Connecticut, opened in 1904 as the first municipal rose garden in the United States."
From Roses of America by Stephen Scanniello and Tania Bayard ( p 21 includes a black and white photo of the garden): "opened in 1904, designed by Theordore Worth... the first municipal rose garden in America."
From Climbing Roses by Stephen Scanniello and Tania Bayard, p. 89: "Elizabeth Park in Hartford, Connecticut (America's first municpal rose garden established in 1904)"
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