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Roses at BBG
- Classifying Roses
- History of the Cranford Rose Garden
- Overview of the Cranford Rose Garden
The Cranford Rose Garden Today
Adapted From The American Rose, by Stephen Scanniello
The Cranford Rose Garden (Photo © Alan & Linda Detrick)
Today, the 15 center beds, each 10 feet wide and 50 feet long, contain as many varieties of modern roses as can be accommodated. Varieties of early modern roses have been replanted and are growing in their original 1920s locations along with newer modern roses.
In the Cranford Rose Garden, the rose can be seen in all its various shapes and forms. The upright hybrid teas, polyanthas, and floribundas suit the geometry of the rectangular central beds, while other types of roses with more carefree growth habits are allowed to ramble, climb, trail, and spread.
Climbing roses scramble up concrete posts, festoon themselves along chains, and swing up and over double metal arches spanning the walkway that surrounds the center section. Old garden roses in the border beds clamber up cedar posts placed between the wild roses, and beyond these, modern climbers and ramblers form a lush cover for the latticework that encloses the garden.
On the pavilion, other climbers, including several that were developed by one of America's foremost early hybridizers, Dr. Walter Van Fleet, make their way up the columns and creep over the roof. Procumbent and low-growing roses spread naturally over the mound on which the pavilion was built. More climbers, ramblers, species, and modern landscape roses wander informally up the hill north of the rose garden to the Overlook.
In keeping with the emphasis on education at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, each rose in the Cranford Rose Garden is labeled with its name and date of introduction. Visitors are encouraged to follow the historical development of the rose while learning about its many varieties and the best ways to grow them. They can also see that roses will flourish in any region of the United States, for here over a thousand varieties thrive in the polluted air of a city with hot and humid summers and harsh winters. The Cranford Rose Garden is meant to encourage and inspire Americans to choose roses appropriate to their own gardens.