View of the Folger Rose Garden from the Smithsonian Castle
As I was riding around near the National Mall on this lunchtime bike ride, the bright colors of flowers in a garden near the Smithsonian Castle caught my attention. So, of course, I rode over for a closer look. The flowers were roses, and I was surprised to see so many of them in bloom so late in the season. So I decided to look into it and find out more about roses and the garden.
There are many different kinds of roses, and they have been around for a long time. At last count, there were roughly 150 known species alone, and the garden hybrids of those currently number in the thousands. And although they are over 35 million years old, every year new varieties are developed and tested, and some are eventually introduced. And if what I saw on this ride is any indication, a great resource for viewing roses is the Kathrine Dulin Folger Rose Garden, located downtown at 900 Jefferson Drive (MAP), in front of the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building and to the east of the iconic Smithsonian Castle.
The Folger Rose Garden embodies the best practices in modern rose care and culture. When planning for this project, Smithsonian Gardens staff spent months carefully selecting rose varieties that are fragrant, disease resistant, and–whenever possible–“own-root roses” meaning they are grown from cuttings rather than grafted onto another rootstalk. Good selection is critical to maintaining a beautiful and scented garden without constant disease pressure and pesticide application.
The Folger Rose Garden features a bed of roses in a rainbow of colors, along with selected companion plants, annuals, perennials, and groundcovers chosen for year-round interest. Specimen conifers and evergreens also punctuate the garden and anchor it during the winter months. Because of it’s prominent and conveniently accessible location, the garden provides an engaging space for visitors on their journey around the Smithsonian museums. You often see people walking by stop to smell the various fragrant roses, read the plant name tags to gather ideas for their own gardens, and to enjoy the spectacular view. And with educational signage interspersed throughout the garden, it also provides an opportunity for visitors to better understand roses as a part of a larger ecosystem.
The garden also includes a number of pieces of cast iron adornment, several of which are part of the Smithsonian Gardens’ garden artifact collection. The cast iron pieces include four benches and a large urn, but the centerpiece is the cast iron original 19th century, three-tiered Keith Fountain at the western end of the garden. The fountain, manufactured by the J. W. Fiske Iron Works Company in New York, formerly belonged to the Ellerslie Farm in Petersburg, Virginia.
The garden was made possible by a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Lee M. Folger, in honor of their mother, Kathrine Dulin Folger, and the widow of John Clifford Folger, a prominent Washington investment banker, civic leader, fund-raiser for the Republican Party and former U.S. ambassador to Belgium. The restoration of the fountain was made possible by contributions of Narinder K. Keith and Rajinder K. Keith.
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