The Gardens of the American Rose Center

The American Rose Center
Type	Rose garden
Location	Shreveport, Louisiana
Coordinates	32.459545°N 93.950717°W / 32.459545; -93.950717
Area	118 acres
Created	1974
Designer	Jackson & Perkins
Operated by	The American Rose Society
Open	April 1 – October 31
Plants	20,000
Species	100
Collections	65 individual rose gardens
Website	rose.org

The American Rose Center is a rose garden in Shreveport, Louisiana operated by the American Rose Society. There are over 20,000 rose bushes of 100 varieties in 65 separate rose gardens on 118 acres of pine forests and woodlands.

America's Rose Garden

The Center's Mission & Vision statement is "Presenting the Rose, America's National Floral Emblem, in a natural setting of majestic pines and companion plants - for pleasure, education, and for the preservation and understanding of the beauty and significance of our favorite flower, the Rose."

The gardens feature roses of all types: the most modern hybrid tea roses, miniature roses, single petaled roses, heritage roses and species. The gardens are recognized as the largest park in the United States dedicated to roses.

The American Rose Center has supported the development and use of sustainable growing practices that do not degrade the environment; the grounds include a test garden for disease-resistant Hybrid Tea roses to demonstrate that exhibition-form roses can be grown without chemical intervention.

Annual events include an Easter Egg Hunt; Evening of Wine & Roses; Allen Owings Horticulture Symposium; quarterly Green Thumb horticultural/educational series; Angel of Hope Candlelight and Healing Ceremony annually on December 6th; and Christmas in Roseland held in the gardens in December for the past 35 years.

Rosie, a working dog and designated member of the staff, was used for several years to keep wildlife out of the gardens, particularly deer which can cause a lot of damage to the plants.

In 2016, the center dropped their fees for commercial and professional photographers, actively promoting the use of the gardens for proms and wedding photography.

In 2018, the gardens hosted the dedication ceremony for the U.S. Postal Service's newly issued Forever stamp celebrating the Peace Rose.

American Rose Society

The gardens have been the home and national headquarters of the American Rose Society since 1974, when the non-profit organization moved from Columbus, Ohio, and before that, from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Society was founded in 1892 at Harrisburg.

According to the ARS bylaws, their objectives are:

"to encourage amateur and professional rose culture; to provide rose horticulture education for ARS members and for the public; to increase the general understanding of and interest in all aspects of roses, including but not limited to the history of roses, hybridization, growing, exhibiting, artistic designing and judging, research, and thereby to improve the standard of excellence of the rose for all people; to record, publish and establish priority on rose cultivar names, and rose cultivar ratings."

ARS publishes several periodicals including American Rose magazine and American Rose Annual, and has published or co-authored several books such as Encyclopedia of Roses, Handbook for Selecting Roses: A Rose Buying Guide, A Guide to Creating Rose Arrangements, Standardized Rose Names, Guidelines and Rules for Judging Roses, Guidelines for Judging Rose Arrangements, and Consulting Rosarian Reference Manual.

Since 1955, the American Rose Society has been the designated International Cultivar Registration Authority for the Rosa genus, and maintains an online database called the Modern Roses Database. Guided by the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, the registration process prevents duplicate use of cultivar names, and ARS is charged with ensuring that new names are formally established.

ARS accredits judges for rose shows. Accreditation requires experience with growing roses, successful exhibition of roses, working as a show clerk, completing an accredited judging school, passing an exam, and apprenticing under an accredited judge.

Restoration project

In 2017, the Society created a five-year plan for the total restoration of the gardens called the Great Garden Restoration Project. A garden design was provided by Jackson & Perkins Rose Company which resembles the gears of a vintage watch. In keeping with that design, the gardens will tell the history of the rose over time; its theme will be "The History of the Rose in America."

The American Rose Society Board of Directors voted to change the name of the gardens to America's Rose Garden, the home of America's National Floral Emblem, the Rose; 2) to become a Botanical Garden featuring roses; 3) to be a site of the International Rose Trials where new roses are evaluated and awarded prizes; and 4) to seek status on the US Register of Historic Places.

Included in the telling of the "History of the Rose in America" will be the stories of great roses, such as 'Peace', which was created in France and "smuggled" out of the country just before the German invasion of France in 1940. Not only beautiful and fragrant, 'Peace' has been the parent of many roses through hybridization. The History will tell the story of the 'Yellow Rose of Texas', a rose that traversed the country with early settlers of America. The History will tell the story of the Grandiflora class of roses, that began with the famous apricot beauty, 'Queen Elizabeth,' and the Miniflora class that was added in the 1990s to distinguish roses that were smaller than hybrid teas and floribundas, but larger than miniatures. The History will tell of "Rose Rustlers" whose mission was to locate and preserve old lost roses found in cemeteries and old homesteads.

The gardens will feature McFarland Plaza, dedicated to the "Father of the American Rose Society" J. Horace McFarland, an early leader, editor and publisher for the organization.

Gallery

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See also

• List of botanical gardens in the United States
• List of Rosa species
• World Federation of Rose Societies

External links

• Official website
• American Rose Center Facebook page
• The American Rose Society