Those of us who have spent a significant amount of time on campus may have wondered why our rose garden, on the easternmost side of the undergraduate campus, seems to be lacking in roses. A student-led effort to restore the rose garden and uncover its rich history is currently underway — and beginning to blossom into a community-wide project spanning students, alumni and neighbors.
Lewis & Clark’s Rose Garden is inextricably linked to the broader Portland area’s rose community. It is, after all, the City of Roses. Portland boasts a wide array of rose gardens, including the Pittock Mansion Grounds, Peninsula Park, the Sara Hite Memorial Rose Garden and the Ladd’s Addition Rose Gardens.
LC’s rose garden has a long and storied history, dating back to the late 1920s. It has undergone two significant restorations, once after World War II. In the past decade, in part due to maintenance expenses and limited grounds staff, it has endured soil erosion, invasive species and rampant overgrowth. Over the past two years, a renewed effort has been restoring the garden to its former glory.
Watzek Library’s archives detail some of the garden’s history through photographs and documents, though Portland’s rose enthusiasts — on and off campus — share much more complex, intricate stories about the rose garden.
Sophie Abbassian ’25, who founded the Rose Garden Restoration Club at LC in 2023, sought to enliven the Rose Garden’s history by undertaking a multi-year restoration project involving manual garden labor and historical research. Now, the fruits of her labor are coming to light as the garden recovers from years of neglect.
According to Abbassian, roughly 90% of the rose bushes were donated by the community, via the Portland Rose Society, with whom Abbassian has collaborated throughout the restoration process. The organization connected the club with others who had plants they could no longer take care of.
“I go and dig them up and plant them here,” Abbassian said. “A lot of these are mystery roses. I don’t know what color they are. I go around once they start blooming with colored yarn to mark what color they are, and then I’m gonna move them again to try to sort them out into a pleasing color arrangement.”
The beds, which are organized into geometric shapes in the central portion of the garden, are designed to resemble stained glass windows when in full bloom, with different colored roses in each bed. A lookout point above the garden offers a more comprehensive view of the garden, though the stained glass effect will likely take a few more years to achieve.
One of many current projects for the Rose Garden Restoration Club is building a thicket of native roses around the perimeter of the garden to serve a variety of purposes. The wild roses will grow strong roots, impeding the spread of invasive species, preventing soil erosion.
“We’re trying to form a thicket around there,” Abbassian said, pointing to the outer edges of the rose garden. “It’s also like a sacrificial rose for the deer to it along the perimeter, and it grows so fast and big, because it’s a wild rose, so it can handle it.”
Because the brunt of garden work takes place during the summer, when most students are not on campus and funding for clubs is inactive, it can be difficult to carry out long term plans. Luckily, Abbassian has been able to connect with alumni, Portland Rose Society Members and local volunteers who are eager to help out.
“I think our club is special because you can have that interaction with different generations of people,” she said. “Alumni like to ask about what student life is like now, and students love to know about what student life was like back then.”
Abbassian hopes to secure the restoration project’s future by collaborating with the LC’s grounds staff and administration. She also will continue to work on the garden post-graduation.
“I’m staying in town. I feel really attached to this garden and obviously there’s still all of that area that we haven’t planted yet. It’s tarped right now and looking pretty sad over there,” she said, pointing to the barren third of the garden closest to the entryway path. “I have to see it through till its restoration and I want to keep maintaining it for a while after.”
Abbassian dedicated her senior art capstone project this semester to a visual storytelling of the garden’s past, present and future. She patched together through extensive research, involving interviews and conversations with Portland’s many rose enthusiasts and digging through Watzek’s archives. Over the past few years, she has worked alongside her mom, Jennifer Huenink ’91 — who attended LC back when the Rose Garden was still being cared for.
“I learned to love gardening from her,” Abbassian said. “(She) has been a huge help on this project.”
In the next few weeks, students may have the chance to see some of the rose bushes on campus bloom. Roses are repeat bloomers, with multiple flushes, or waves of blooming throughout their flowering cycle.
“Peak bloom is around June,” Abbassian said. “They bloom from as early as May to as late as November. That’s another reason why I really love them.”
Most of the garden’s current roses were transplanted in the last couple of years and still are adjusting to their new home. As of late April, there are 583 rose bushes planted in the rose garden’s beds. Though they appear small, the roses show promising growth.
“They look super stubby and weird and ugly right now,” she said. “But they are producing all this reddish purple. That’s all new growth. And that’s just in the past few weeks. They shoot up like crazy, and I’ve already seen some buds on some of them.”
She emphasized that roses need time to fully establish themselves.
“There’s a saying, ‘The first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap,’” Abbassian said. “Some of them are sleeping, some of them are creeping. Hopefully they’ll be leaping.”
Abbassian emphasized that there are several ways that people can contribute to the Rose Garden Restoration project, beyond the manual labor of gardening.
“I need help with historical research, because that’s another big part of this project, is trying to make all this history known,” she said. “Or if they want to donate tools, roses, mulch, tarps, anything. We need a lot of stuff.”
Anyone who wishes to get involved with the club can reach out to Abbassian via rosegarden@lclark.edu or via Instagram @rosegardenrestoration. As the semester winds to a close, meander down to the Rose Garden to say hello to the baby roses and perhaps even make a few of your own rose buds.
About the Author
Thank you, Mossy Log, for covering the story of the Rose Garden Restoration Project, and the vision Ms. Abbassian has for the benefit of the wider Lewis and Clark Community today and for decades into the future.