Partnership creates distinctive wall of roses
By LAUREN DAKE
The climbing roses of the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden will be used to cover the fences around Santa Clara's new on-campus apartments.
Mel Hulse, Heritage Garden Volunteer and Maintenance Director, explained how the partnership between Heritage Rose Garden and Santa Clara University was formed.
"We didn't have a place or enough room for our historic climbing roses so they were all just sitting in pots," Hulse said. "Marianne Sugg[wife of Joe Sugg, SCU director of facilities], a volunteer at the garden, was aware of our dilemma and she also knew that Santa Clara was looking for something to cover up the fence around their new apartments so she came up with the idea of using our climbing roses."
The San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, located on Naglee Ave. in San Jose, is a botanical collection of roses spread across 4.5 acres of land. It contains 3,700 different varieties of roses, which is more than any other public garden in the Western Hemisphere, and new varieties are continuously added. Community volunteers established and maintain the garden.Eventually the climbing roses will cover a 1/2 mile section of The Alameda at the southeast end of the Santa Clara campus. As the roses grow they will shield the new junior/senior apartments from public view.
There will be more than 250 climbing roses planted along the fence when the project is complete. Volunteers from Heritage and the Santa Clara facilities staff began planting the roses on Dec. 10. The facilities staff will be in charge of their upkeep and maintenance throughout the years, but the roses will still belong to Heritage. In a sense, Santa Clara will be an extension of the Heritage Rose Garden.
The whole project cost less than $200, which was spent on compost and fertilizer, according to Chris Young, Team Leader of Santa Clara's Landscape Division.
Kathy Muller, Executive Director of Guadalupe River Park and Gardens, sees the collaboration between the university and garden as a win-win situation.
"From the garden point of view, it is another site for planting roses that people would not see otherwise," Muller said. "It is also a really nice community outreach on the part of the university and the garden. We are saving a lot of roses, and at the same time enhancing the beauty of the campus."
The goal is not only to color coordinate the roses, but also not to repeat any rose variety. Each plant will be a different type of rose. One-time bloomers will also be planted among re-bloomers. The first blossoms should appear in spring. Hulse estimates that the roses will reach their full potential in four years.
"When the project is complete and the roses are ready, I really believe that it will be world famous - an absolutely stupendous show," Hulse said.
Young agrees. "Right from the start I thought it was a great opportunity for the university, it was just a matter of how it would all come together," he said. "It has all come together very nicely and I believe that it could possibly be world famous. It's going to be beautiful and really unique."