Tacoma, WA

My grandparents were visiting us in June from out of town. I thought I’d end my usual ‘Tour de Tacoma’ with the 5 Mile Drive. I pointed out the Rose Gardens on our way out, and when they saw all the colors and blooms we did a loop and decided to make one last stop. Usually I would just point out the Rose Gardens from the car. But, where my grandparents are from, this amount of rose variety is kind of rare. They were in store for a real rose garden treat and it was worth pulling our lazy legs out of the car. Well, plus, we also needed a bathroom break!

The Rose Garden is another photographers dream in Tacoma, located at the opening of Point Defiance Park. I would give nearly anything to make this garden my front yard. Everytime I have come here, we all kind of gravitate towards the arbor where the rose vines crawl across making a beautiful tunnel. I wish I took my wedding pictures here too because it would’ve made a nice portrait.

The Rose Garden is cradled in its own gated arrangement, but is surrounded by other gardens. We enjoyed the Herb garden because it was fun to discover the herbs that we are more used to shaking out of a bottle in our kitchens. And they also have a separate fuchsia garden and iris garden.

But the roses remain the main attraction. Rows and rows of colorful roses! My ritual is to smell as many species and find the best and strongest smelling roses. Usually I find that you can’t go wrong with the purple and lavender ones. They always smell so good, whereas, sometimes I’d find a most vibrant colored blossom but it was scentless. With so many species, I wanted to see if I could find non-purple-y ones that were equally aromatic. I did! I overheard a family visiting from Arizona thrilling over the smell of a certain species, so I had to sneak over to them. It’s called the Royal Sunset, and it’s a bush bursting with coral colored roses.

I’m really so glad that we stopped by after the 5 Mile Drive, because we could’ve spent another half hour taking pictures and smelling. I will be coming back in a couple weeks, because the Dahlias were getting all set up in their own garden, so there’ll be some fat juicy blossoms soon. Even though I can’t ever have a garden this grand, I’ll be just fine coming to Tacoma for the Rose Gardens, whether I have visitors or not.