Gotta Love Those Roses!
Gotta Love Those Roses!
By Eugenia Parry
The rose garden on June 21, 2023 | Photo courtesy Kathy Haq
One of the most beautiful and treasured Santa Fe public spaces is the Harvey H. Cornell Sr. Memorial Rose Garden Park at the corner of Cordova Road and Galisteo Street. This gently sloping tract of land, given to the city in the 1930s, was all tumbleweeds and blowing dirt that annoyed inhabitants of the new houses being built around the site. It became a park in 1958 when private citizens invited Harvey Cornell, an eminent landscape architect and frequent Santa Fe visitor, to turn it into an oasis of lawns and trees for everyone to enjoy. At the south end, garden clubs planted irises. At the north end, Cornell designed a rose garden set among tiered stones.
The newly formed Santa Fe Rose Society planted it with more than 800 rose bushes. A private citizen added the fountain. The first roses were Blaze climbers along Galisteo Street. Nearly all the identifying markers have since disappeared; we can only guess the roses’ names. Today, with the participation of the city, volunteers from Santa Fe’s Rose Society and the SFEMG maintain the site.
Three certified Santa Fe veteran rosarians and rose cultivators, Jack Ortega, Juanita Ortega and Katherine O’Brien support this work with indispensable experience. They offer rose “clinics” to Master Gardeners and the public on proper rose planting, feeding (after decades of soil building, the garden is entirely organic) mulching, successful pruning and deadheading to promote continual blooms. They also sponsor and judge an annual rose show at the DeVargas Center based on selections from local gardens.
Jack’s soft-spoken style includes a zeal that makes people want to participate. ”People are afraid of roses,” he says, meaning that the aristocratic rose carries with it an ancient pedigree. Its heady, otherworldly fragrances make it seem too fragile, too disease-prone to be grown successfully by mere mortals. “Don’t let roses intimidate you. They’re tough. You can’t make a mistake, but don’t turn on the emitters and walk away. Hand-water to watch their every need. Baby them. They’re like children.” He smiles. He and Juanita have over 200 roses of their own.
Blooms on June 21, 2023 | Photos courtesy Kathy Haq
The park is a neighborhood that enchants its residents and draws a steady flow of visitors. People come to sit and chat. They knit, read newspapers, sip coffee, walk (and pick up after) their dogs. They stop to praise the labors of the volunteers. Along the pathways visitors commune with roses up close, listen to visiting bees and other pollinators, capture blossoms on cell phones, appreciate gorgeous hues and smell lush fragrances,
Something about rose chemistry calms people down. Many garden volunteers feel this. Couples stage their weddings among roses because more than beautiful, they feel appropriate for sacred rites. The couples aren’t always Santa Feans. One with an entire entourage came all the way from Florida to marry in the rose garden last June.
This article was originally published in the June 2024 Newsletter.