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The Heritage Rose Garden at Spring and Taylor Streets, was dedicated in 1995. It is a botanical collection of roses grown over the last 400 years.
This four acre rose garden holds more than 3,500 varieties of roses. It is a heritage garden, designed to save varieties of roses from extinction, so future generations may enjoy them. The roses in the garden have been selected on the basis of their beauty, rarity, or importance to the history of rose hybridizing. Friends of the garden have collected budwood and cuttings from plants all over the world. Many of the rarer and older varieties in this world-class garden are "found" roses, literally discovered in neglected cemeteries, in the gardens of nineteenth-century homes, or ion country roadsides and then brought here to thrive.
Planted and maintained by volunteers, with support from the city of San Jose and the Friends of Guadalupe River Park & Gardens, the Heritage Rose Garden was designed to be a world class walk-through of rose history. The site is laid out in concentric circles with six sections, each holding groups of rose classes by period. Starting with European, once blooming Old Garden Roses in Section O on the southeast side of the garden and walking clockwise, a visitor can trace the history of roses all the way through to Modern Shrub Roses in Section N. Climbers grace the ends of each row, and in the center two rings are the low-growing Polyanthus and Miniatures.
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