RESILIENT Roses

Heritage varieties flourish at Philadelphia's historic Wyck garden

- BY LORI LITCHMAN

Walking along the unassuming gray fence surrounding Wyck, a National Historic Landmark in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood, passersby might have no idea that one of the oldest rose gardens in the country grows on its other side.

Unless, of course, that visitor was walking by in May, when the alluring aroma of thousands of blooming roses would woo anyone into entering the tranquil garden space.

“There’s something indescribable about this place,” said Wyck’s executive director, Kim Staub. “We just refer to it as ‘Wyckishness,’ a sense of peace and beauty and calm.”

Wyck’s landscape remains largely the same as it did hundreds of years ago when newlywed Jane Bowne Haines moved into her country home. In 1821, she decided to convert the kitchen garden into a rose garden.

Now widely considered the oldest rose garden in the country still growing in its original plan, today that garden provides respite and retreat for urban dwellers seeking connection with nature. The 2.5-acre footprint of the property sprawls in a city of tight spaces. Here, visitors can stroll and savor the beauty of a bygone era, linger under the shade of historic trees or watch hundreds of honeybees hard at work.

“It’s a very peaceful, naturally beautiful space that feels totally removed from Germantown Avenue just a few feet away,” said Grace Ford-Dirks, Wyck’s manager of interpretation and public outreach.

“First-time visitors to Wyck are often surprised at just how much green space is behind the fence.”

The rose garden takes up just a quarter of an acre, but it holds more than 50 cultivars of heritage roses, representing 200 years of rose-breeding history, a repository still contained in the parterre plan envisioned by Haines in 1821.