The International Rose Test Garden is a rose garden in Washington Park in Portland, Oregon, United States. There are over 10,000 rose bushes of approximately 650 varieties. The roses bloom from April through October with the peak coming in June, depending on the weather. New rose cultivars are continually sent to the garden from many parts of the world and are evaluated on several characteristics, including disease resistance, bloom formation, color, and fragrance. It is the oldest continuously operating public rose test garden in the United States and exemplifies Portland's nickname, "City of Roses". The garden draws an estimated 700,000 visitors annually.
In 1915 Jesse A. Currey, president of Portland's Rose Society and Sunday editor of the Oregon Journal, convinced city officials to institute a rose test garden to serve as a safe haven during World War I for hybrid roses grown in Europe. Rose lovers feared that these unique plants would be destroyed in the bombings. The Park Bureau approved the idea in 1917 and by early 1918, hybridists from England began to send roses.A decade before the test garden was proposed, 20 miles (32 km) of Portland's streets had been lined with rose bushes for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition.Portland was already dubbed "The City of Roses" and the test garden was a way to solidify the city's reputation as a rose-growing center internationally.[1]In early 1918, the garden began receiving plants from growers in England and Ireland, as well as Los Angeles, Washington and the Eastern United States. In 1921 Florence Holmes Gerke, the landscape architect for the city of Portland, was charged with designing the International Rose Test Garden and the amphitheatre. The garden was dedicated in June 1924. Currey was appointed as the garden's first rose curator and served in that capacity until his death in 1927. Since 1940, the rose garden has been one of the official testing gardens for what is now called the All-America Rose Selections.Originally, the garden occupied about a block, sandwiched between a playground and an elk corral. A parking lot replaced the original rose garden when the garden moved to its current location in 1928. The garden later expanded in the 1950s when Washington Park's zoo moved to its current location.The award called Portland's Best Rose was established in 1996. Rose experts from around the world attend a one-day judging in June and select the best rose that day from thousands of submissions. Portland remains the only North American city to issue such an award.By 2013, the garden's collection had expanded to over 10,000 rose bushes of over 650 varieties.
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