The Rose Beds
The design of the rose beds in the MCC Rose Garden is an essential reason why the Rose Garden is so inviting to visitors. Landscape architect LeRoy Brady designed the MCC Rose Garden, not in a series of rectangular beds to display roses, but softly curved beds that reveal hybrid teas, florabundas, shrub roses, etc. in a pleasing manner that invites the Garden visitor to venture on to see what surprises await around the next curve.
These beds are also useful in assigning Deadheaders a particular area that becomes "their rose garden" to work in whenever they can come to the Garden. Having your own bed promotes a far more intimate relationship with roses you really get to know than would be the case if you just came to the Garden to deadhead any of the more than 6,000 rose bushes. Many Deadheaders, who do not have a place at home to grow roses, enjoy their little rose bed at MCC.
The Rose Garden consists of three phases at the present time. Phases One and Two contain a wide variety of modern roses, the demonstration and test gardens for large flowered roses and the collection of antique roses.
The third phase, the Veteran's Garden, is nearing completion and will be dedicated on November 10th. The roses in this new area represent all of the divisions of our military and patriotic themes in their names, such as 'Veteran's Honor,' a beautiful red hybrid tea.
The fourth phase of the garden will be for miniature roses. Please go to the Miniature Garden section for more information on its plans.
In the beds, most of the different varieties are now identified with a marker that gives the name of the rose, the type ( hybrid, floribunda, shrub, miniature, etc.), the year the bush was introduced commercially, the parentage of the rose and if it was an All-American Rose Selection or Award of Excellence Winner with the year it won. Currently being worked on is a map of the Garden beds showing where the different varieties are found. When the map is completd, copies of it will be placed in the Garden for visitors who are interested in the location of different varieties.
Also, when the map is completed, an alphabetical list of varieties in the Garden will be posted on the kiosk so visitors can quickly see in which bed they can locate a particular variety they are interested in. All of this contributes to the public educational part of the Garden's mission.
Finally, the rose beds have been appealing to donors who, if they donate more than $500 to the Rose Garden Foundation, may have a sign honoring a person special to them placed on a specific rose bed, as a Rose Bed Donor or in Honor of a specific person. Again the idea of associating with one particular rose bed has been popular as in effect the donor feels a part of that bed.
FOR INFORMATION TO BECOME A DEADHEADER AND ENJOY A SPECIFIC ROSE BED TO WORK IN OR TO BECOME A ROSE BED DONOR CALL VOLUNTEER CO-COORDINATORS:
Mickey Kundrat
(602) 359 - 8528
Phyllis Humphry
(480) 814 - 0312
Please contact Jared Langkilde for comments or corrections email phone: 480-461-7396
