Grand Opening: Olbrich's Rose Garden

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Advanced touring from noon to 2 p.m.
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at 2 p.m.

Olbrich celebrates the opening of its innovative new Rose Garden on Sunday June 19. Olbrich invites its members, volunteers, supporters, and the public to participate in opening this spectacular addition to the Gardens. The Rose Garden will open at noon with members of Olbrich’s Horticulture Staff present from noon – 4 p.m. to share with visitors information about the garden.  A ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m.

Also from noon – 4 p.m., members of Olbrich Botanical Society and Olbrich neighbors can stop by special booths to receive a free gift while supplies last.  Those who join the Olbrich Botanical Society between noon and 4 p.m. will receive a free commemorative Rose Garden poster.

Olbrich's progressive new two-acre Rose Garden is at the forefront of national garden design trends, moving away from traditional, formal plantings to feature more environmentally friendly, hardy shrub roses. The shrub roses are integrated into a landscape of natural curving borders filled with colorful perennials, waving ornamental grasses, blooming shrubs, vines, and small ornamental trees, as well as colorful spring bulbs. The garden will help home gardeners choose the best roses for their own Wisconsin yards.

Prairie style architecture, including an accessible native stone overlook tower, will offer views of the Gardens and Lake Monona. The gazebo and arbors previously located in Olbrich’s former Rose Garden have been moved to key sites in the new Garden. A fountain, with five water jets on each side to represent the five petals of the rose, provides a cooling centerpiece. As in the rest of the Gardens, benches and smooth accessible pathways are an integral part of the new Rose Garden.

The new Rose Garden also furthers Olbrich’s commitment to integrated pest management (IPM), an environmentally friendly system of dealing with damaging insects, weeds, and diseases in the garden. This program emphasizes reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides by using the least toxic means of controlling a problem. Gardening with plants that are naturally resistant to, or at least tolerant of, bugs and fungal diseases, such as shrub roses, allows the IPM system to be used even more effectively.

The Olbrich Botanical Society raised over $2 million to build and endow the new Rose Garden.  Major gifts for the project were given by American Family Insurance, the Eugenie Mayer Bolz Family Foundation, John B. Heim, the John A. Johnson Foundation, the Madison Community Foundation, Ilah Ostrum, the Oscar Rennebohm Foundation, the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, and J. Nash Williams.  Olbrich Botanical Gardens broke ground on the new Rose Garden on October 3, 2003. Madison Mayor Cieslewicz was among the first to turn a shovel of soil for the garden at the groundbreaking ceremony.