Features
The International Rose Test Garden has 4.5 acres (18,000 m2) in several tiers facing downtown Portland, the Willamette River and East Portland. On clear days there are views of the Cascade Mountains, with Mount Hood featured prominently.
An amphitheater hosts many events throughout the year, predominantly classical music concerts and a few plays. During good weather the amphitheater is popular for picnicking and flying disc games. The Queens Walk is a brick walkway at the side of the garden with a bronze star honoring each Rose Festival queen since 1907.
The Shakespeare Garden originally contained botanicals mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare. This was later modified to include fewer sun-loving plants due to the copious shade provided by the surrounding trees. There is a formal walkway, raised sitting area, and immaculately tended flora. The rose varieties are named after characters in his plays. It is popular for special occasions, particularly small weddings.
The Gold Medal Garden is a formal garden with award winning roses, walkways, a central fountain, and a gazebo. It is also a frequent site for weddings.
The Royal Rosarian Garden has paid tribute since 1924 to the goodwill ambassadors and official greeters who serve in the many Rose Festival events. As each rosarian is knighted, they adopt a rose variety as their namesake. A rose is planted in this garden for each of the highest ranking Rosarian Prime Ministers. This garden-within-a-garden contains many roses which are no longer commercially available.
The Miniature Rose Garden is one of only six such testing grounds for the American Rose Society. The elevated beds at the entrance are popular for their unique varieties.
The Rose Garden Store opened May 1, 2000 to provide guest services.
An abstract stainless steel sculpture and reflection pool and several fountains mix classical and modern styles. Each area of the rose garden has unique character: rose varieties, trees, terrain, lawn.
The roses and other plantings are tended by one year-round gardener—two during the summer—and many volunteers. Approximately 500 hours are volunteered yearly by local enthusiasts
Read more about this topic: International Rose Test Garden
Famous quotes containing the word features:
“The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit made permanent. Nature, like the destruction of Pompeii, like the metamorphosis of a nymph into a tree, has arrested us in an accustomed movement.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“These, then, will be some of the features of democracy ... it will be, in all likelihood, an agreeable, lawless, particolored commonwealth, dealing with all alike on a footing of equality, whether they be really equal or not.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)