by Alan K. Lee
Portland, Oregon is known as the Rose City, and has long had a love affair with roses. The Portland Rose Society has been in existence for more than 130 years. Portland’s premier festival is the annual Rose Festival, held in June every year since 1907. And one of the city’s best, if not the best, botanical gardens is the International Rose Test Garden.
The International Rose Test Garden was conceived in 1915 as a safe haven during World War I for hybrid roses grown in Europe, and rose hybridists in England began sending roses to Portland in 1918. Over the years, other hybridists have sent roses to Portland from all over the world.
The primary purpose of the Garden is to serve as a testing ground for new rose varieties. The Garden is home to a variety of formal rose evaluation programs in designated test beds. Rose companies send potential variety introductions for evaluation. How each variety performs determines if it makes it onto the
commercial market.
Today, the International Rose Test Garden covers 6.9 acres in Portland’s West Hills, has more than 600 varieties of roses, and has more than 10,000 individual rose bushes. By any measure, that’s a lot of roses, and that draws a lot of people to the garden, not just from the Portland area, but from around the country and other parts of the world.
The Rose Garden is located in Washington Park, west of Portland’s downtown. Admission is free. To get there from downtown, take Burnside Street west, turn left onto Tichner Drive, then right onto Kingston Avenue. The Rose Garden will be on your left, behind the public tennis courts. Parking is limited, though, and will be hard to find on a summer weekend. Come on a weekday, if possible, and come early in the day to have the best chance to find a spot. Or consider parking in the downtown area and taking the Washington Park free shuttle.
If you want a souvenir of your visit, or information on growing roses, check out the Rose Garden Store, located just south of the garden itself. Proceeds from the store go to support the Portland Rose Festival Foundation.
Washington Park has enough attractions in addition to the Rose Garden that you can easily make a day of it. Directly west of the Rose Garden is the Portland Japanese Garden, one of the finest Japanese gardens outside of Japan itself. It’s also home to the Oregon Zoo, the World Forestry Center, the Portland Children’s Museum, the Oregon Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and Hoyt Arboretum. And for hikers there are a variety of trails, including the Wildwood Trail which runs for more than 20 miles through Washington Park and Forest Park, the largest forested city park in the country.
The International Rose Test Garden is one of Portland’s top attractions for obvious reasons, and a place all visitors to Portland should see before they leave.
Posted March 16, 2022
All photos © Alan K. Lee
Near the main entrance to the park, there is a Visitor Center that would normally be a good place to begin your visit. But, unfortunately, it is currently closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
There is a wide, paved, ADA accessible path (the Promenade) connecting the beach with the marina area of the park, and an on-going construction project will further connect the park’s trail system with the Point Ruston Waterwalk, giving unhindered pedestrian and bicycle access to the park from the Tacoma waterfront.
The outer loop of the Five Mile Drive provides numerous waterfront access points with views across Dalco Passage to Vashon Island and across The Narrows to the 
The outer loop is closed to vehicular traffic part of the day to give cyclists, runners, and pedestrians access to the northern half of the park free from conflicts with motor vehicles. On our most recent visit it was closed after 2:00 pm, but on our previous visit it was, I believe, closed in the morning. Check the Point Defiance Park 
On both of our recent visits our final, and longest, stop was at the botanical gardens area near the entrance to the park. Here there is a large pond with a waterfall, an herb garden, a large rose garden, a dahlia garden, and a Japanese garden. We could easily have spent even more time here than we did on either visit. And if you visit the 
Point Defiance Park is one of the largest, and best, city parks in the Pacific Northwest. It is, without question, one of Tacoma’s top attractions.
Originally posted May 19, 2019. Updated and re-posted November 16, 2021
Tickets include parking, and transportation from the parking lot to the fields is available for those with mobility issues. And there are tram and hay wagon rides that run from the main building through the fields. There is also a tulip tour train ($10 per person) that runs from the main building around the fields, with photo stops, that runs from noon to 5:00 daily. 
Cut flowers and potted bulbs are available for purchase at the farm, and flower bulbs can be ordered for fall delivery. 
