Sleeping Rose Garden

The other day when David and I went to Colonial Park, we also stopped at the Rudolf W. van der Goot Rose Garden. David found this lovely spot in Somerset, NJ last summer while we were on a bike ride. It was such a fun surprise! We love riding Rails to Trails (I never knew about these until I moved to NJ) and if you follow the D & R Canal Trail which is 29 miles of great bike trail you will run into this rose garden. Not to say that David and I ride the entire 29 miles...good grief. We access at the Somerset entrance and ride until we get tired. I think the most we did was 10 miles.

Anyway, here are just a few shots of what this garden looks like in winter. I love looking at rose gardens while they are sleeping because you can really see the layout.

The garden boasts over 3000 roses and is a really nice large size. Supposedly they only have roses that thrive in NJ, but looking at the list of Hybrid Tea roses, I'm a little sceptical. A few of these should probably only be grown in California, Florida or some other really warm wonderful place.

The below identifier belongs to the rose above. I took this shot because these roses looked unbelievably healthy and to be that greened-out in March?? I think I might need a Lady Elsie May for some background filler.

That's David in the background. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. Just a few other families.

This shot gives you an indication of the size. This is from corner to corner.

A gorgeous Ballerina Polyantha rose.

I took this to check out the branching habit of Fantin Latour, a Centifolia rose. I have a baby one of these in the front garden and looking at this I think I may need to move it.

They have a small test area for Weeks roses. I would love to know what they are testing but sadly, no tags!

David said he might build me an arbor this year. Hurray!! I've always wanted one and it is helpful to have a very handy husband. I took this shot because I love how this climbing rose looks on their arbor in the winter. Want something similar. This is The Garland and they have several of them. I don't know if this climber is still in production...I looked and can't seem to find it.

Beautiful Magnolia in the background.

Since I'm from Arizona I think I need this rose, don't ya think?