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Journeys
Rose Test Garden adds color to city's landscape
Ron Cowan, Statesman Journal PORTLAND -- It's a rite of visiting Portland, a touchstone in the Portland experience.
A stop at the International Rose Test Garden is as close to a must-see, must-do as can be found in Oregon's biggest city.
Situated in scenic Washington Park, with a panoramic view of downtown Portland's skyscrapers and Mount Hood, this is a place to soak up local views, color and atmosphere.
Tourists stop here for photos, music lovers flock to the park amphitheater for concerts and even native Portlanders have been spotted in the garden sampling the flavor of the city.
The 4-acre garden itself is worth the visit, with more than 400 labeled varieties and more than a thousand roses, all planted on three broad terraces with Portland as a backdrop.
Here you'll find something for everyone: new, old and in-between varieties, hybrid teas, climbers, shrubs and miniatures. The peak blooming period is June through October.
Stone fountains, grassy paths and shallow flights of stone steps ad backbone to the plantings. You can enter the garden down one of three stone stairways from the parking lot, passing through a border of rhododendrons and firs.
At the bottom of the center stairway there are nine raised beds of miniature roses surrounding an information kiosk that identifies the locations of the roses in the main garden. Two terraces further down the hill are used as test sites for the cultivation of various roses.
The International Rose Test Gardens date to 1918, when four dozen plants from European growers were planted on Armistice Day. The Olympian Copyright 1999
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