I visited The Cranford Rose Garden division of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden last weekend, and as you can see by the photo collage above there were a plethora of pink roses in bloom, one more exquisite than the other!
In 1927, Walter V. Cranford, a construction engineer whose firm built many of Brooklyn's subway tunnels, donated $15,000 to BBG for a rose garden. Many of the original plants are still in the garden today.
The Cranford Rose Garden has one of the largest collection of rose cultivars in North America. It contains over 5,000 bushes of nearly 1,400 varieties, including wild species, old garden roses, hybrid teas, grandifloras, floribundas, polyanthas, hybrid perpetuals, climbers, ramblers, and miniatures.
"A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring." ~William Carlos Williams
The Rose Arc Pool
Unfortunately in 2009 a virus caused the demise of many of the cultivars in the southern end of the garden and led to a major renovation, remediation and restoration project. You can read about the problem in the placard below and the solution being used to re cultivate the soil and plans to replant the damaged areas.
(All photos will enlarge if clicked on once, and then again)
Thankfully the major portion of the rose beds were unaffected by the virus and are flourishing.
Roses, roses, sweet roses everywhere!
"The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones;
they are for what they are;
they exist with God today.
There is no time to them.
There is simply the rose.
It is perfect in every moment of its existence."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Each rose plant is labeled with a name and the date it was introduced.
A young artist was in the garden the day I visited, completing her pink rose painting.
"There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted." - Henri Matisse
A view of the Cranford Rose Garden from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Overlook area.
"You love the roses--so do I. I wish the sky would rain down
roses, as they rain from off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white and soft to tread on.
They would fall as light as feathers, smelling sweet: and it would
be like sleeping and yet waking, all at once."
- George Eliot
I have visited the outstanding Brooklyn Botanic Garden many times before, and if you would like to see all the blog posts I've written about it previously you can click this link to scroll through all of them.
I'm linking this post to "Fridays Finding Beauty" event on Claudia's blog "Dippity Road" and "Pink Saturday" event on Beverly's blog "How Sweet The Sound." Thank you Claudia and Beverly! It is always so nice to join in on your blog events and I encourage everyone to visit your blogs to see the links to all the other blogs participating today and tomorrow.
