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Rikke Greenlee
We hope you enjoy your visit to the largest public collection of roses in the United States. The Rose Garden features over 300 varieties of rose bushes, over 7,000 rose plants and a variety of beautiful plants, trees and flowers!
The property that is now home to the Tyler Rose Garden was first purchased by the City of Tyler in 1912 for the construction of a park and fairgrounds. After many years and at the urging of former American Rose Society President Dr. Horace McFarland, an application to the Works Project Administration (WPA) was made in 1938 to fund the construction of a municipal rose garden. The $181,255 federal grant was thought to be the largest municipal park and rose garden project approved by the WPA in that era. It was used to construct a stone picnic pavilion, balcony, stairs and other garden features.
Keith Maxwell, the WPA landscape architect, drew the plan for park and rose garden. The plan was ultimately revised by Henry Thompson, a local nurseryman, who laid out walkways, planted trees and shrubbery. Thompson would later be killed while serving as a fighter pilot during Word War II. The garden would eventually be dedicated in his memory.
Before the first rose could be planted, extensive work had to be done to transform the red clay soil to create an environment conducive for growing roses. Using a cemetery backhoe, 36 inch wide beds were dug and back filled with topsoil, sand and sludge. In 1952 the Tyler Rose Garden was officially opened. The roses in the first garden were donated by local nurseries with the intent of creating a living catalog of roses produced by the Tyler rose industry. Nearly 3,000 rose bushes were used in the first planting.