This week may be off to a rainy start, but the weekend promises to be full of beauty at our popular Rose Garden Weekend!
The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden is already approaching peak color, as more and more of our nearly 700 rose cultivars display their the seasonal reds, whites, yellows, and pinks.
On June 6 and 7, you are invited to stroll through the colorful and fragrant rose bushes while enjoying live music, plant care demonstrations and tours with expert rosarians, and light summer refreshments in the shade of the garden’s overlooks.
Stephen Scanniello is NYBG’s Curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. The author of six books on roses, his latest is A Rose By Any Name. Stephen is the recipient of the Jane Righter Rose Medal from the Garden Club of America. He gardens in Barnegat, NJ.
Shrub rose ‘Alexandra, Princesse de Luxembourg’
During July in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, you’ll find the gardeners and volunteers bent over headfirst into the rose beds filling buckets with faded blooms. We’re deadheading, or as they say in England, “refreshing” the rose shrubs. Deadheading is summer pruning and very easy to do. Simply cut the stem bearing the faded rose to a point where a set of healthy leaves is attached. This is a time-consuming job that will reward you with beautiful new roses in a few weeks time.
There are still plenty of roses to enjoy in the garden. The sweetly scented ‘Alexandra, Princesse de Luxembourg’, a blush-pink shrub rose, and ‘David Rockefeller’s Golden Sparrow’ are both in full bloom. Last week, in Paris, this yellow beauty won the prestigious Gold Medal for Landscape Roses at the International Rose Trials of Bagatelle.
The roses in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden demanded a lot of patience this year, but it was well worth the reward. The harsh winter resulted in severe die back for many of the hybrid teas and floribundas, so we cut them back hard in the spring and gave them a jolt of nitrogen-rich fertilizer to get them going.
The cool spring had the roses growing at a slow and steady pace and they sat in bud throughout the month of May, waiting for warmth. Generally, our roses start to open around the third week in May and peak bloom spans from the end of May into the first few weeks of June. This year the old-fashion garden roses were pretty much on schedule but our repeat-bloomers were a good two to three weeks behind.
The warm weather finally arrived, and it was certainly worth the wait. To call the roses resplendent would be an understatement. I drove by late last week and my view from the top of the hill was a mosaic of colors as vibrant as an Andean textile.
The Rose Garden Celebration kicks off tomorrow! And without a moment to spare—the roses are already at 60% of peak color as of today. Don’t miss the blooms or the entertainment. Click through for full details on performances, tours, food and drink vendors, and expert-led Q&A sessions. You can even make your own watercolor painting! Please note that there will be no film screenings or performances in Ross Hall this weekend. You’ll find the entertainment outdoors! Book a special festival ticket now for a fun-filled weekend in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden.
This weekend only is also Dig! Plant! Grow!: Global Gardens Spring Harvest Celebration. Bring your kids on a culinary journey around the world!
The stunning Therese Bugnet rose is in full bloom in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. Ever wonder about the people for whom your favorite plant species are named? Well, this cultivar is actually named after the sister of the man who introduced it, Georges Bugnet. This Canadian writer and plant aficionado bred this rose to endure harsh winters, making it quite a hardy plant indeed! Our friend Therese here is only one of hundreds of varieties that you can enjoy this weekend at the Rose Garden Celebration!
This summer is flying by in a blaze of blooming colors! June begins in just a few days, so don’t blink or you’ll miss the season for your favorite buds, including that flower that never goes out of style—the rose.
There is no better place to appreciate the sublime variety and beauty of roses than in the Garden’s own Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, a landmark 1916 design by Beatrix Farrand. So join us next weekend for the Rose Garden Celebration on June 7 and 8 to admire over 670 varieties of rose at the height of their natural color, in high style. Refreshments, live entertainment, activities, and rosarians offering their expertise will all form part of this festive tribute to one of the greatest gems on the Garden’s grounds. Read on for more details!
Stephen Scanniello is NYBG’s Curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. The author of six books on roses, his latest is A Rose By Any Name. Stephen is the recipient of the Jane Righter Rose Medal from the Garden Club of America. He gardens in Barnegat, NJ.
New breaks on a ‘Reve d’Or’ rose plant
Compost piles filled with blackened rose canes eclipsed the forsythia as the harbinger of this year’s rose season. Gardeners everywhere, dealing with the effects of a long cold winter followed by roller coaster spring temperatures, were left with no alternative but to prune their roses much more severely than they have in recent seasons. The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden wasn’t immune to this situation. From modern hybrids to rugged old roses, plants were shortened, some nearly to ground level. Am I worried? No. I look at this as “tough love” for roses.
Experienced gardeners know that this is an opportunity to rejuvenate a rose plant. With sharpened secateurs, and a shot of courage, this seemingly somber situation becomes a chance for you to improve the health of the rose bush. Removing dead wood and weakened canes encourages strong basal growth. By June, this plum-colored growth will produce beautiful roses.
Spring at the Garden is full of festivals! Beautiful scenery, delicious refreshments, and activities for all ages are the perfect way to spend a spring weekend. From daffodil season to tulip season and beyond, we have plenty of activities over the next three months to help make the most of the grounds as their brilliant colors return.
Our popular Culinary Kids Food Festival returns April 14 with a week-long, family-friendly food festival celebrating the relationships among plants, farms, and your favorite treats. Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden staff and the culinary team, Growing Chefs, will offer cooking demonstrations, recipes, and hands-on activities—with plenty of music and food tastings to add to the fun. Kids can fill up their Festival passports as they tinker with the science of kitchen chemistry and get to the root of foods at a variety of activity stations with themes like “The Chicken and the Egg” and “The Buzz on Bees Sweet Bees!” The daily 1 p.m. cooking demonstration will feature kid-friendly recipes and tasty samples, while local chefs will share tips and more.
But that is only the first in a full season of outdoor adventure. Read on for May and June’s exciting upcoming festivals!
This week may be off to a rainy start, but the weekend promises to be full of beauty at our popular Rose Garden Weekend!
