CA Nursery Historical Park Rose Garden
In 2024 I was contacted by the City of Fremont, CA to choose the roses for their new rose garden. But it wasn’t just any rose garden. This garden which had been designed by their landscape architects, was to tell the history of roses and rose breeding in California,
I love rose history and was happy to take on the role. Through research, talking with friends and colleagues and compiling list after list the story began to take shape.
I drew on the inspiration of the Fineschi Garden in Italy where the roses are all arranged by breeder. I thought what better way to tell the story then to let the breeders tell it themselves. So began the mission to try and find about 10 roses that represented a breeder’s career.
Breeders still with us like Tom Carruth, Keith Zary, Jim Sproul, Robert Rippetoe, Ping Lim and others, I had choose their own roses. Some of them helped me with breeders they knew from their career. What emerged was a great list of roses that indeed told the story of roses and rose breeding in California.
This also had to include Old Garden Roses as they were the backbone of the nursery in the early days. Using early catalogues supplied to me by them, I chose old garden roses that best represented what was offered back in the day.
I realize a list like this is never complete and there are probably some omissions but I worked with what I had and what I could find. Many roses were still in commerce but others had to be custom propagated. A whole army assisted with that and the effort is on going.
The garden began being planted in summer of 2025. I will take at least another year or two for all the roses to find their way there. But once they do this will be a truly unique rose garden.
Below are links to two PDFs. One of the master plant and one of the master rose list. Explanations of how to use them together are also below.
Below is a link to the PDF of the master plan of the garden. Each bed has a number and each rose has a 3-4 letter code. Those bed numbers and rose name codes can be found on the list of roses which is to the right of this.
Below is a link to a PDF of the Master Rose List. They are not arranged in alphabetical order. Instead they are sorted by the breeder they belong to or the group like old garden roses. There is a bed number and then a 3-4 letter code for each rose. Arranging the list this way will make it easier for you to find the roses in the master plan.