SAN JOSE HERITAGE ROSE GARDEN

A Walk Through the Garden

You are invited to enjoy and delight in a "Walk Through Rose History" at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden.

Start in the center of the garden. For each class, the oldest varieties are toward the center.

Note the low growing miniatures and Polyanthas in the two center rings, climbing roses of many classes at the end of each row, and pillar roses in the middle of many rows.

Start your tour with the Old Garden Roses (Section O) on the southeast side of the garden and enjoy the Gallicas, Albas, Damasks, Centifolias, Mosses, Spinossissimas, Eglantines and Species roses, mostly once blooming.

Continue clockwise through the Portlands, Bourbons, and Hybrid Perpetuals (Section P), which are crosses of the once blooming Old Garden Roses with Chinas, Teas, Musk and Autumn Damask roses. In the outer rings, find the hardy rugosas.

Then proceed through the exotic Chinas and Teas (Section K) which brought rebloom to Europe and America at the end of the eighteenth century

Continue through the north beds of older Floribundas (rings 3, 4 and 5) and Hybrid Teas (outer rings) (Section L)

And more modern Floribundas (rings 3, 4 and 5) and Hybrid Teas (outer rings) (Section M).

Complete your journey with the Shrub Roses (Section N) at the south end of the garden, a collection of older and newer reblooming roses of larger growth including species hybrids, Hybrid Musks, David Austin's "English Roses", (outer 2 rings) and others.

(There are errors of placement, but these are aggressively being remedied by new plantings each year.)

Heritage Rose Garden with the Historic Orchard in the Background

Enjoy the amazing variety of types, colors and forms. (Click here to visit a page of pictures of varieties in the garden, showing some of the wide range of roses you'll encounter.)  Aren't they all magnificent? Come back and visit the garden often. Every visit will bring new delights.

You can now download an 9-page PDF 'Tour of Rose History' that will guide your through the garden, explaining all the rose classes, and giving a garden example of each.

Permanent, engraved plastic plaques are installed in the garden. They include the rose name(s), class, hybridizer and year of release/discovery. 

Plaques can include personal dedications for participants in the "Adopt-a-Rose" program. To have the sentiment of your choice installed in front of "your" rose under the name plaque, call the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy  at 408-298-7657 to have an application mailed to you.  You can also download the application form by going here. The plaques should be installed within a month. Cost is a tax deductible $50 the first year and $45 for an encouraged renewal. These contributions help make the all-volunteer San Jose Heritage Rose Garden a leading rose botanical garden drawing visitors from around the world!

This page was last updated on 1/23/18.

Address comments to Jill Perry

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