by Jan Lazor

Created on: July 14, 2009

In 1927, the San Jose City Council promised residents a rose garden. It is a promise the California city has kept for more than 80 years, thanks to the volunteers of the Friends of the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden.

Today visitors stroll through the garden at the corner of Naglee and Dana Avenues in San Jose's Rose Garden neighborhood, which takes its name from the park. The city garden is laid out on 5.5 acres of land where a prune orchard once stood. The city rose garden is one of San Jose's hidden treasures.

Slightly off the beaten track, visitors have to exert some effort to find this peaceful spot where they can hang out and drink in the sight and scent of the roses. Visitors can wander the garden paths and sniff more than 189 rose varieties among the 4,000 rose bushes planted throughout the garden.

Sniffing is permitted. Snipping is not.

This year the Municipal Rose Garden joined an elite group of 22 other rose gardens scattered throughout the various climates of the United States. During a May 2009 ceremony, officials from the All American Rose Selections (AARS) announced the garden will be the 23rd test site to develop new hybrid rose breeds.

This spring volunteers built four new rose beds along the Dana Avenue side of the park. Here 38 new types of roses, identified only by numbers, have been planted in hopes of being picked as the 2013 variety named as an AARS. The test varieties will be scrutinized, evaluated and ranked for two years before the latest winners will be chosen to join the elite list of AARS roses.

Next year four new beds will be added to the Municipal Rose Garden and another batch of unnamed roses will begin the testing and evaluation process on the road to victory as an AARS variety.

The municipal garden has not always been the destination of rose enthusiasts from across the country. Cuts to San Jose's city budget put the the rose garden at risk of losing its premier standing until Terry Reilly and Beverly Rose Hopper arrived on the scene. In 2007 Reilly and Hopper took matters into their own hands and formed the Friends of the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden. The nonprofit group virtually revamped the rose beds and replanted the garden until it surpassed its past glory.

Today a tiered fountain bubbles in the center of the garden encircled by beds of carefully pruned rose bushes in all sizes, shapes and colors. The fence protecting the garden is camouflaged by climbing roses planted against

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