To contact the committee for more information, click here.

Welcome to Our HCMGA Rose Garden!

Click here to view photos from 2020

We hope you enjoy the Hamilton County Master Gardener Association (HCMGA) Rose Garden!

The HCMGA Rose Garden exists to provide a quality educational experience designed to encourage growing roses in Hamilton County and surrounding areas. We do this by actively demonstrating the variety of roses which can successfully be grown in our area and by providing effective growing techniques, best practices and education to our members as well as the public.  

The Rose Garden began with a group of dedicated HCMGA volunteers spearheaded by Monica Taylor and Joann Hamilton. On April 26, 2014, 103 roses were planted by over 50 HCMGA volunteers. All roses are “own root” versus “grafted” to ensure health and longevity of the plant. 

A special rose soil mixture was laid in mounded rolls consisting of soil, sand and organic material to ensure optimum growing opportunity.  A water drip system was installed in each of the mounded rolls to provide consistent watering for each rose plant. Additionally, a pathway was laid through the rose bed consisting of crushed granite flume. Arbors and trellises and two concrete benches have also been added to provide a pleasant rose garden landscape. More information can be found here on the history of the creation of the Rose Garden. 

The rose beds within the garden represent several rose classifications described below. Educational signage is provided for each rose that includes its picture, name and classification as well as a link to the HCMGA website via a QR code.

HCMGA rose garden committee members and volunteers provide the care for the rose garden on a weekly basis throughout the growing season. This care requires mulching, dead-heading, pruning, fertilizing, weeding, disease and pest management and ground maintenance. 

Rose Garden Volunteers are also available to provide face-to-face information for those who visit the garden while the roses are being tended to each week.

Please feel free to photograph, walk the path, sit on benches and just enjoy the beauty and scents provided by these lovely plants. 

Additional helpful resources: 

The American Rose Society (ARS): www.rose.org

Indianapolis Rose Society, local chapter of ARS: www.indianapolisrosesociety.com

Why and How do we winterize the Rose Bed?

 

Rose Garden Map

[Find your favorite roses in the garden]

Rose Garden List of Roses

[List of Roses in our garden]

Rose Garden Location

 

Old Garden Roses

The Old Garden Rose is defined as any rose that existed before 1867. Old Garden Roses bloom heavily in the Spring on wood from the previous year and typically only blooms once per year. They can grow over 20 feet tall. The following are a few of the classifications of the Old Garden Rosses we have in the Garden: Damask, Bourbon, Gallica, Noisette. For more information, click here. 

Modern Roses 

Modern Roses are those varieties bred after 1867.  Unlike Old Garden Roses which bloom once a year, Modern Roses bloom continuously. They also have a larger bloom size and longer vase life, but lack fragrance, and are somewhat less hardy and disease resistant. The following are classifications that we have in the Rose Garden: Hybrid Tea, Floribunda, Kordes, Dr. Griffith Buck, David Austin, Earth-Kind, Climbing, Knockout, Easy Elegance, Miniature, Miniflora and Drift. For more information, click here. 

 Species Roses

These are often referred to as “wild roses”.  We have no representatives of this type in our garden currently.

 

Thank you for visiting our rose garden!

 We hope you’ll return often!