Curator’s Tour: Roses & the Ann Bartram Carr Garden

Join horticulturist Katie Jacoby and curator Joel Fry for a collaborative tour of the Carr Garden, discussing the roses in bloom and the research and archaeology that went into the garden reconstruction. Register for the in-person tour, or join by Zoom at the link below.

 

TICKETS:

$25 General Admission / $15 Members 

$2 Southwest Neighbors or ACCESS Cardholders

FREE for student with STAMP Pass

 

The neglected Carr Garden in late winter 1892, less than a year after the City acquired Bartram’s Garden. [Bartram’s Garden Collections]

 

Carr Garden Reconstruction, Site Plan by LRSLA Studio Inc., May 2015

All attendees will be expected to wear a face mask and sign a COVID waiver. Since social distancing may make it harder to hear our guide during our walk, we recommend that you bring a pair of headphones with you so that you can tune into our Zoom audio feed on your phone (link below).

This is a rain or shine event that will take place entirely outdoors. Please bring rain gear and comfortable walking shoes, as we will be traveling a few hundred yards on foot. ADA Accessible bathrooms will be available onsite. We’re happy to make accommodations for guests with mobility limitations. If you have questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out ahead of the event.

 

JOIN BY ZOOM:

Please click the link below to join the webinar:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87390474676

 

WHAT’S IN A NAME? The Roses at Bartram’s Garden

by Katie Jacoby

Roses are often one of the most easily identifiable flowers in the Garden. You can probably even bring to mind the scent of a rose, envision their prickles and the silky feel of their petals. But if you were to be asked what kind of rose grows there, you may find yourself wondering what this means.

In the Carr Garden at Bartram’s Garden we have a living collection of heirloom roses, or old garden roses. These roses are divided into two categories: Summer flowering old roses and repeat flowering old roses. The first blooms just once in the summer usually around Memorial Day, though many have just started to bloom and the second will perpetually bloom throughout the summer.

You may be asking yourself why would someone want a rose that only bloomed once? These roses are living history. They are like the great great great grandparents of modern roses. Through thousands of years of cultivation around the world, different classes of roses were hybridized or selected for things like color, fragrance, repeat blooming or number of petals.

At the Garden you can find the world’s first perpetual climbing rose, gigantic wild roses otherwise known as species roses and even moss roses — a whole class of roses that came into existence through a chance stem mutation. Some of summer flowering roses include the first bi-color rose featuring white petals occasionally striped with a splash of pink and a rare rose indigenous to the eastern United States named Rosa carolina var. plena. The var. in its name stands for variety and plena indicates that the form of the flower has plentiful petals and not just a single ring.

These classifications or types of old garden roses and the stories of how they came into existence might have been lost to time if it weren’t for the people who loved them.

Take a moment this spring, visit the Carr Garden and practice your observation skills. How many petals do you see and how are they formed? Do you notice anything interesting about the color of the stems? How about the shape of the plant, does it look like it wants to climb or does it gracefully arch, spilling like a fountain? Your observations can help you narrow down what classification the rose belongs to and get you closer to identifying what kind of rose you are enjoying, thorns and all.