Roses always have been special to the Missouri Botanical Garden. When beginning his botanical garden, founder Henry Shaw wrote a small book on the emblem of his native England, “The Rose.” “Human art can neither colour nor describe so fair a flower,” he wrote in 1882. “[Its] beauty is composed of all that is exquisite and graceful.”
Visitors to the Missouri Botanical Garden’s two rose displays can feast their eyes on over 2,700 individual plants encompassing 259 varieties. The Garden is one of over 130 All-American Rose Selections (AARS) accredited public rose gardens. AARS winners may be seen in the Lehmann and Gladney Rose Gardens one year before they are offered to the public.
The Gladney Rose Garden has been in existence since 1917, when it housed many old garden roses. It has evolved over the years to its present giant wagon-wheel shape. About 1,315 roses representing 105 varieties of mainly hybrid tea, shrub and floribunda roses are displayed.
Many varieties of climbing roses are featured on the formal fence enclosing the garden. The climbers on the fence include trial roses from Kordes®, which are evaluated monthly.
The Garden tries to update the display every year with roses that are highly disease resistant and show high vigor while also being hardy in St. Louis, as well as new and unusual varieties.
The Anne and John Lehmann Rose Garden, established in 1976, has been called the more romantic of the two gardens, with a bushy mix of floribundas, shrub roses and other classifications. It is less formal than the Gladney Rose Garden, and contains about 1,400 roses representing 154 different varieties.
The Lehmann Rose Garden also mixes the delight of aromatic flowering plants and water. The
Shapleigh Fountain is set in a circular brick plaza 50 feet in diameter with three curtains of water that rise and fall.
The upper level of the garden contains the Lehmann Gazebo with a fountain and pool, offering a shady respite during peak blooming time. In the spring, thick azaleas in riotous color flank the gazebo.
Edging the first terrace is the Kercheval Pool, a low bubbling fountain.
The middle tier contains a sustainable rose trial garden where no chemicals are sprayed. This trial area includes one bed of the Earth-Kind® roses and two beds of Kordes roses. The Earth-Kind trial requires no chemical application of any kind, no deadheading, no fertilizing, minimal watering requirements and no winter protection; the only pruning to be done is any winter injury. The goal of this trial is to see what roses currently available in commerce can be grown with minimal care and still be beautiful. The Kordes trial focuses on winter hardiness, disease resistance without the use of chemicals and all the flowering characteristics one would expect from a rose. The trial requirements are not as rigid as the Earth-Kind trial, but the bed is also not sprayed with any kind of chemical.
A mix of very fragrant old garden roses, species roses and perennials grow on the lower terrace, showing how roses can be featured among other plants.
The AARS winner for 2010, R. ‘Easy Does It’ and the two winners for 2011, R. ‘Dick Clark’ and R. ‘Walking on Sunshine’ can all be seen in the Lehmann Rose Garden.