Elizabeth Park Rose Garden

National Register Of Historic Places · West Hartford, Connecticut

The oldest municipal rose garden in the United States, laid out in 1904 on land Charles Pond left to the city in memory of his wife Elizabeth, and still free to walk into on any day of the year. The rose garden proper is about two and a half acres holding something in the order of fifteen thousand bushes across eight hundred varieties, laid out on a radiating plan with arched wooden trellises down the walks - and when those arches are in flower in the third week of June it is genuinely one of the sights of New England, not a local attraction. The rest of the park is perennial and annual borders, a rock garden, a herb garden, historic greenhouses and open lawn, with a restaurant in the old pond house. It is municipal, it is run partly by a conservancy and partly by the city, and it has never charged anyone to come in. The rose window is narrow and it moves with the spring, so the third week of June is worth planning around rather than hoping for - though the perennial borders carry the garden well into September, long after the coach parties have stopped coming.

1561 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford, West Hartford, Connecticut, 06117, United States

The park and the gardens are open daily year round from dawn until dusk, and entry is FREE at all times. The greenhouses keep shorter and more variable hours. The restaurant in the pond house runs its own schedule including evenings. Parking is free. The rose garden is at its height for a short window in June, and the arches are cut back hard after the season.

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