Rose Weekend Retrospective:
Everything Comes Up Roses at
Hartford's Elizabeth Park
Dateline: 06/27/99
Dating to 1904, Hartford's Elizabeth Park
is the country's oldest municipal rose garden. Last week, during the park's annual Rose
Weekend, it was at its blooming best. If you missed Rose Weekend, never fear! I'll
take you on a photographic journey through Elizabeth
Park's more than 15,000 rose bushes arrayed in beds, on arches, and on fences throughout
the fragrant garden. More than 900 varieties of roses bloom each year at this magnificent
spot. In addition to boasting the third largest rose garden in the country, the park is
also home to perennial and annual gardens, rock and herb
gardens, greenhouses, ponds, and more than 100 tree
species.
I was just at Elizabeth Park again Friday for lunch at the Pond House Cafe, and the rose garden, while perhaps past its Rose Weekend peak, is still intoxicatingly beautiful. After being closed for two years, the Pond House Cafe nestled within Elizabeth Park is now being operated by the owners of the former Reader's Feast, which used to be one of my favorite little out-of-the way cafes, and though the menu is limited and they still have a few kinks to work out (they couldn't provide me with anything more than a plastic knife with which to cut a sandwich in half!), you can't beat the setting! Cafe hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days per week during peak season. Hours will be somewhat reduced from October through April. More substantial dinner fare and wine and beer will be served starting in the fall.
So, if you can get to Hartford before the last petals flutter to the ground, here's a preview of what you'll see, and, if you can't journey to Hartford this summer, enjoy this virtual visit to one of the city's most colorful and historic treasures. Elizabeth Park is located at the intersection of Prospect and Asylum Avenues on the Hartford/West Hartford line. For more information, call (860) 242-0017.
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Begin the Elizabeth Park Tour
All photographs by Kim Knox, copyright 1999.
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